Talks between the SDLP and Sinn Fein about reaching a nationalist pact for the forthcoming Westminster election broke up last night without any agreement.
Both sides said they would brief their leadership about the talks but continued to question each other's motivation. Nationalists currently hold only five of the North's 18 Westminster seats but Sinn Fein claims the number could significantly increase if only one nationalist party contested some constituencies.
Speaking after the meeting at Stormont, Sinn Fein chairman, Mr Mitchel McLaughlin, said his party had outlined an electoral strategy over the next ten years which could lead to nationalists winning an additional six seats.
However, he expressed disappointment at the discussion. "It wasn't a particularly productive meeting," he said. "We did outline a 10-year scenario in which clearly there would be three Westminster elections. We described a situation where, with a co-ordinated approach, up to 11 out of the 18 seats would eventually be represented by nationalist or republican representatives."
SDLP chairman, Mr Alex Attwood, questioned whether Sinn Fein genuinely wanted a pact or was simply going through the motions for PR purposes.
Sinn Fein had given "no credible answers" to why it had conducted a public debate on the idea of a pact, why it had released private correspondence to journalists and why its push for an electoral alliance coincided with the decision of the SDLP to run the North's Agriculture Minister, Ms Brid Rodgers, as its candidate in West Tyrone.
Until Ms Rodger's candidacy, most observers believed Sinn Fein would win the seat. Mr Attwood said Sinn Fein had not even given details of its pact proposal. "We didn't tell Sinn Fein to get lost, we told Sinn Fein to get real, because the meeting was not real," he said.