UK election threatens N.Irish peace

Trimble faces threats from within -- and without -- his party

By CNN's Nic Robertson

STORMONT, Northern Ireland (CNN) -- British general elections are usually a fairly predictable affair in Northern Ireland.

This year, however, all but a handful of Northern Ireland's 18 seats in the UK Parliament are up for grabs. And more than half of David Trimble's Ulster Unionist Party's nine seats at Westminster are under threat.

Trimble fears that Ulster Unionist voters will not support the party because they think the peace process is failing them.

With divisions deepening in the majority Protestant Unionist community over the implementation of the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement, the results of these elections could affect future peace talks.

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"Progress has been slow," says Trimble. "People hoped it might have been more rapid, and that might result in people that might have supported us staying at home. I think it's absolutely crucial that those that want to see us succeed come and support us."

Apathy is not Trimble's only problem. Voters' main problem with the peace process is that three years after the Good Friday agreement, the IRA has still not complied with the deal's call to get rid of its guns.

If Trimble's party loses too many seats, then he would fall below a threshold of credibility he needs to finish the peace negotiations. On top of that pressure, some of his MPs have resigned, and others -- angry over the IRA guns -- do not fully support him.

Democratic Unionist Nigel Dodds believes he is gaining where Trimble's UUP is losing in the Protestant estates of North Belfast.

"As I go round, most Unionists say it's a process of concessions to the IRA," says Dodds. "IRA Sinn Fein are in government, their prisoners (are) out, the police has been destroyed, there has been no decommissioning, no handing over of illegal weapons."

Only a few months ago, Dodd's party took Trimble's second-safest seat in a by-election. That suggests that in this once-predictable area, all bets are off.

The question now for Trimble and his party is whether they can prevent an electoral meltdown caused by resignations and internal disputes.

Analysts here say that if recent polls showing increasing Unionist support for the 1998 peace deal are accurate, then they are in with a good chance. If not, they say, the whole future of the peace process could be under threat.