Martin McGuinness, Sinn Fein's candidate for the presidency of Ireland, has come a long, long way since his role was to assure IRA hardliners that the organisation would never give up its arms and abandon its "armed struggle".
In the early days of the peace process, his task was to reassure militant doubters suspicious that Gerry Adams and other republican "doves" might be going too far, too fast in redrawing republican orthodoxy.
"Our position is clear and it will never, never, never change," he insisted with characteristic bluntness at a Sinn Fein conference in 1986. "The war against British rule must continue until freedom is achieved."
However, today the IRA has put its weapons beyond use and has left the stage. McGuinness pursues his aim of Irish unity by purely political means, saying yesterday that, if elected to succeed Mary McAleese, he would be prepared to meet the Queen.
Governments in London, Dublin and Washington have no illusions about his career as a top IRA leader, during which he must have approved of hundreds of shootings and bombings. Unionists know this, too, yet with their votes they have endorsed the partnership government he heads along with their political representatives.
It was the Adams-McGuinness leadership which undertook a rethink, concluding that a withdrawal was not on the cards. They gradually developed the alternative idea that republicans should switch to politics.
One of the surprises about this process was that McGuinness showed himself to be as formidable as a politician as he had been an IRA commander. McGuinness reached an important milestone two years ago when, in an electrifying moment, he denounced violent republican splinter groups as "traitors".
Another milestone came when he and Sinn Fein urged nationalists to join the police. His goal of Irish unity is still there, but the guns have gone.
The vote for Sinn Fein is increasing. It is not far off becoming the largest party in Northern Ireland, where it is now the dominant nationalist force.
South of the border it has made smaller gains. Few predict that McGuinness might win, but a respectable showing will represent yet another step in his long journey towards political power.
- INDEPENDENT