Smyth is calmly confident of keeping Belfast South seat he first won in 1982

IF self assertiveness and confidence were the criteria for entering Westminster, either Alasdair McDonnell of the SDLP or David Ervine of the Progressive Unionist Party would be shoe ins for Belfast South on May 1st.

But talking yourself into the House of Commons doesn't necessarily equate with entering the House of Commons, as the sitting MP, the Rev Martin Smyth of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), would point out quietly.

And quiet is a word easily applied to Mr Smyth, who has held this seat comfortably since 1982 when he won the by election caused by the IRA murder of his colleague, the Rev Robert Bradford.

Mr Smyth is in the same mould as the former leader of the UUP, Sir James Molyneaux: polite, reserved, irritatingly abstruse by times.

This has served him well for 15 years, although among elements of his own community he was criticised when, as head of the Orange Order, he was absent from Drumcree during the first stand off of 1995.

Last year he stood down as Orange Grand Master after 24 years, leaving him more time to concentrate on his political career. He has been canvassing diligently throughout the constituency and says the response has been "very positive".

Justifiably, he has more than good reason to be calmly confident that he will continue as the MP for Belfast South.

Belfast South is often perceived as a mainly middle class constituency of Malone Road Catholics and Protestants living reasonably amicably together. But it has many working class areas, such as the nationalist Markets and Lowers Ormeau and the loyalist Belvoir Park and Taughmonagh estates, not to mention Sandy Row.

Quiet is not a word applied to either Dr Alasdair McDonnell or Mr Ervine, respectively Mr Smyth's main nationalist and loyalist opponents.

Mr Steve McBride for Alliance and Mr Sean Hayes for Sinn Fein are also pitching in here but their campaigns somehow lack the fervour of the SDLP and PUP efforts.

The SDLP has the measure of Sinn Fein in Belfast South, although Mr Hayes from the Markets believes that a growing younger electorate will boost the republican turnout.

Dr McDonnell calls Mr Smyth the "invisible man" of Belfast South politics and has challenged him to debate publicly the political and socio-economic issues of the day, an invitation coolly spurned by the Presbyterian minister.

Dr McDonnell, who has a busy medical practice on the Ormeau Road, reckons he will crack 10,000 votes on May 1st - and should Mr Ervine eat sufficiently into Mr Smyth's vote, he reckons he could even win the seat.

Dr McDonnell talks a good election campaign and while his vote in Belfast South has been steadily increasing, he appears to be rather overselling his prospects.

This time the DUP, the Ulster Democratic Party and the UK Unionists, who between them took 24 per cent of the vote in the Forum election, are not running. Some of that vote will go to Mr Ervine but enough should revert to Mr Smyth to ensure he is back in Westminster.

Still, Mr Ervine also insists he is "playing to win". This is the PUP's first Westminster campaign and the chief PUP spokesman also says the response on the doorsteps, whether on Sandy Row or the Malone Road, has been "very positive".

One of the imponderables here though, is how the middle class voters will plump.

With so much polarisation, Mr McBride for Alliance and Ms Annie Campbell of the Women's Coalition believe they will get a good response.

They, and politicians such as Mr Paddy Lynn of the Workers' Party and Mr Niall Cusack of the North's Labour grouping, hope that people will abandon the usual sectarian head count voting and strengthen the middle ground.

But at the end of the day, the quiet man, the Rev Martin Smyth, should be back in Westminster.