Party faithful look on Mallon as the heavyweight puncher who will leave political opponents bloodied

AS THE Westminster election campaign slowly gathers pace, SDLP supporters will look more and more to Seamus Mallon to give them heart, to shake the cocky confidence of Sinn Fein and counteract verbal jabs from unionism.

The MP for Newry and Armagh has the reputation of being a trenchant and at times cussed man. He's a hard-edged dialectical nationalist. A young lawyer recalls challenging him on some political issue over a late-night drink at a recent SDLP conference.

"He tore me apart. Every point I made he demolished clinically and brutally. There were a lot of other people present and he was just merciless. It was embarrassing, if not humiliating."

And then, surprisingly, he added: "But it was the best thing that ever happened me. It sharpened me politically." And that's just what the SDLP faithful want over the next four to five weeks, an unforgiving heavyweight puncher to keep them on their toes. John Hume can talk about the peace process and post-nationalism until the shutters come down but it's Mallon's task to rally the troops.

Mallon is an odd mix, austere but witty, crusty and hard-boiled, philosophical, at times suspicious but with a devious sense of humour.

The SDLP grassroots see him as one of them.

Conversation can range from literature, Thomas Hardy, Sean O Faolain and Daniel Corkery are favourites, to golf - once a five, now a 16 handicapper - to poker, good whiskey, Gaelic football and horse-racing.

He makes the liveliest and most interesting speeches at SDLP conferences. He has a successful background in amateur dramatics - wrote an award-winning one-act play - and consequently has dramatic delivery that serves him well.

It's common knowledge that for years a tension has existed between himself and Hume. It's as if they ran two different fiefdoms.

Hume and Mallon have never been buddy-buddy, and never will be, yet there's a common purpose that binds. "We have a good working relationship, and I think we respect each other," he says. "We have come through an awful lot together. Both of us have given it all we have, and will continue to do that."

Reporters never need rapid shorthand when interviewing Mr Mallon. Every sentence is carefully constructed, precisely enunciated. In his tidy study there are prints on the wall, books galore, and a framed letter from the former House of Commons speaker Bernard Weatherill congratulating him on his maiden speech after he finally got into Westminster in 1986. The current speaker, Betty Boothroyd, likes him, and generally gives him the nod when he seeks to speak.

Also there's a stand of pipes, a pouch of Amphora tobacco and a packet of Nicorette. He hasn't puffed a pipe or a cigarette since New Year's Day, although he is dubious about whether Nicorette can counteract nicotine pangs.

He's 60 and has angina and low blood pressure. When they're active he has to rest. Today - though he's typically focused. The SDLP should hold his own constituency of Newry and Armagh, and Foyle and South Down. Elsewhere the big threat is from Sinn Fein, in constituencies like West Belfast, Mid-Ulster and West Tyrone. How is the SDLP going to challenge that force? Hume-Adams, as was obvious from the Forum election results, helped Sinn Fein. People talk of the vote Sinn Fein "borrowed" from the SDLP; will the SDLP get it back? "Most of it, maybe not all of it," says Mr Mallon.

Without any criticism of Hume he acknowledges the electoral difficulties posed by Hume-Adams. "A lot of our efforts have gone in two directions. We are like a tugboat trying to pull Sinn Fein into a democratic and peaceful process, and at the same time trying to pull unionism into a position where unionists will start to deal politically with the problems.

"The irony is, of course, that the people we are trying to tug along are our political opposition in this election. A very unique position for any party to be in, and I have no doubt the electorate recognise that," Over the course of the campaign the SDLP will hammer home two points, representation and non-violence: the fact that they go to Westminster, Sinn Fein don't, and that they are not associated with violence, Sinn Fein are

"Instinctively, people know you can't play with peace, you either have it or you don't have it. It is not an each way bet," says Mallon. "And they also know the nature of a solution. I think that by the sophistication of the electorate they will see that a negotiated settlement will only come by what is possible, by what is attainable, and on the basis of dealing with unionism." For all his "greenness" he is vehemently anti-violence. Both his parents were involved in the War of Independence and, on the anti-Treaty side, in the Civil War. They saw plenty of violence and death but "they would never talk about it". That influenced him.

Republicans argue that nationalist gains such as the Anglo-Irish Agreement, the Downing Street Document, the Framework Documents, all of which were opposed by republicans, were nonetheless achieved on the back of IRA violence. How can he rebut that argument? He opens with a dig.

"When you strip away the verbiage from the Sinn Fein position all we are talking about is Sunningdale for slow learners." In other words if all-party talks are ever reached "the starting point for them will be somewhere around what was in place in 1973".

Had republicans followed the solely democratic path there could have been agreed nationalist candidates, and as far back as 1983 more than half the land mass of Northern Ireland consequently would have ended up in the hands of nationalist candidates. Unionists then might have seen the value of dealing with nationalism, and allowing an Irish dimension.

He is conscious, however, of the dangers - consider the former Yugoslavia for instance - of nationalism or unionism "becoming defenderist in its narrowest sense and simply seeing itself in geographic terms or in terms of ownership of territory".

"The challenge will be for both unionism and nationalism to create a sense of place that is not narrow and introverted and defenderist, and which can evolve both politically and constitutionally.

"Republican violence almost sapped the will for Irish unity out of the Irish people, especially in the Republic of Ireland, so that whatever visionary drive and motivation there may have been towards a republican position was essentially debilitated by republicanism itself."

With some reluctance he confides that he would choose Eamon de Valera as a chief influence." He should have been with Michael Collins during the Treaty negotiations in London - that's the first rule of politics, being there - but nonetheless the more I read about him the more I recognise how unfairly he has been treated. He was a towering figure." From a guerilla army he created Fianna Fail, transforming them from a "slightly constitutional party" to the biggest party in the Republic. Amid talk of a renewed IRA ceasefire there are lessons there for Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, says Mallon.

"Eamon de Valera was able to take unpopular decisions when he had to," he adds. The question is, can republican leaders do the same? Of Adams and McGuinness he says, "I am prepared to accept that they want to move from active violence to active politics, but they must do that on the basis of being honest with those whom they lead. They must tell them what is attainable." He keeps coming back to that line, "to what is attainable" now. Each generation has a right to write its own history, he says. This generation won't achieve a unified Ireland, but the next or future generations will, he believes.

Nationalists are entitled to be nationalists, he says. "Because consent has been given by the whole of nationalist Ireland, with the exception of Sinn Fein, that a change will only come about by the wishes of a majority of the people of Northern Ireland, is not to be confused with consent to the current constitutional position.

"There must be a democratic right to dissent from, and to change that constitutional position.

"The unionist veto is the strength of their numbers expressed democratically. There is a de facto unionist veto, just as there is a de facto nationalist veto. But it is the two sovereign governments who have the right to make changes as part of a negotiated settlement." Unionism needs a vision, he adds. "But through David Trimble it has reverted to the tactics of decades ago. It is best exemplified by Drumcree where I believe he won the battle but lost the war. He has been told by unionis that there can't be a repeat of Drumcree. The Westminster reaction to his behaviour was exceptionally strong."

Mallon will be to the forefront in fighting the SDLP cause on the ground. The SDLP will mount a hard sell, yet it'll never have the razamatazz or exuberance of the Sinn Fein campaign. The SDLP is too middle-class for that. Nonetheless he believes that the SDLP will trump Sinn Fein on polling day.

The nationalist Catholic middle-class are strong in numbers. Yes, they were sufficiently disaffected by Drumcree and the way John Major procrastinated over the IRA ceasefire to offer support to Sinn Fein, but the majority will come back to the SDLP, he is convinced.

"I think what we are dealing with is the fag end of 27 years of appalling violence, strife and the most appalling sectarian bitterness. Inevitably this will be an edgy election. It will be a raw nerve election the whole way through. But people will look for stability, strength and reliability and will vote for the SDLP.

"I certainly would have the conviction that we can't and will not go into the next century with this problem unresolved. So that is how crucial this election is."