THE SDLP decided yesterday to let its leadership decide on the question of a possible electoral pact with Sinn Fein in advance of next year's Westminster election.
In a closed session of the party's annual conference, in Cookstown, Co Tyrone, the Balmoral branch of the party was said to have withdrawn a resolution which would have committed the SDLP to contesting every constituency.
The party leader, Mr John Hume, said afterwards that the conference had made the "common sense" decision. No other party, he said, debated and revealed its electoral strategy in advance.
In a BBC radio interview on Saturday, the deputy leader of the party, Mr Seamus Mallon, questioned the wisdom of keeping the debate private.
"I'm not sure it's the wisest decision that was ever made," he said. "I think either you have a debate within a political party or you don't. It might well be we've got the worst of both worlds by having the debate and yet having it in private. The more it is in private the more the danger is that the type of press interest will increase.
Mr Mallon also said: "I don't think it would be remotely possible for our party to enter into any arrangement of an electoral nature with a party which is tied to an organisation which is continuing violence."
This comment was criticised on the same programme by the Sinn Fein leader, Mr Gerry Adams, who claimed it was at odds with the SDLP's attitude to electoral pacts in the last Westminster election.
Mr Adams said that anywhere that nationalist representation could be improved "or even where we can stymie the unionist monopoly on those constituencies which have a nationalist majority", then both Sinn Fein and the SDLP should discuss ways of doing that. Nationalist interests had to be set before party interests.
Asked about recent contacts between himself and Mr Hume, and about the prospects for a resumed IRA ceasefire, Mr Adams said: "Sinn Fein cannot deliver anything at all, no matter about the efforts of myself and John Hume, unless it is in the context of a clear and unambiguous signal from the British government that there are going to be credible talks, without preconditions, on a broadly agreed time frame and that everyone, and I include the IRA in this and particularly the British government, are going to be involved in showing some signs, some initiatives, which bring about some confidence about commitments."