Sinn Fein and the SDLP have already announced their choices. The DUP and Ulster Unionists should do so this week but their likely nominees are known.

DEMOCRATIC UNIONISTS PETER ROBINSON will be the spider at the centre of the Stormont web, controlling every departmental budget as finance minister. An outstanding strategist with a meticulous eye for detail, he has transformed the DUP from fundamentalist sect into modern, pragmatic party.

He plays computer chess and is the only unionist who wears Versace jeans. A fuddy-duddy haircut and wardrobe was ditched in a personal makeover, and the glasses went following laser surgery.

Robinson, 58, now needs to shed his steely image. He has 1,000 Japanese koi fish and the same number of ties.

NIGEL DODDSwas one of the '12 apostles' who signed a statement interpreted as challenging Paisley but he was the softest of the sceptics. A Cambridge graduate and left-of-centre politically, Dodds, 48, should make an able trade and enterprise minister. In 1996, the IRA tried to kill him while he was visiting his son in hospital. Andrew, who had spina bifida, later died. To Dodds' credit, he never tried to make political capital from the murder attempt nor is he personally bitter. He and wife Diane are currently holidaying in a beach hut in Kenya.

ARLENE FOSTER seems an unlikely DUP star . . . a Church of Ireland liberal, strong on human rights, who defected from the UUP. Impressive public performances and hard work . . . she does a daily 160-mile round-trip commute from her Co Fermanagh home to Belfast and attends nightly DUP functions . . .

impressed Paisley and will secure the reward of environment minister. "Arlene caught Ian's eye. He likes feisty women, " says a colleague. Iris Robinson, once tipped as the DUP's likely female minister, should become health committee chairperson. Foster, 36, a mother of three, grew up on a border farm where the IRA tried to kill her RUC father.

EDWIN POOTS, a former farmer, will be in Romania on a Free Presbyterian project for underprivileged children when, sources say, he could be nominated as culture, arts and leisure minister. His promotion is largely due to loyalty. Previously his party's Lagan Valley Westminster candidate, he stood aside for DUP convert Jeffrey Donaldson. Although regarded as militant, he supported the peace deal and became a strong enforcer of party discipline.

"Edwin looks goofy but he's no daw, " a colleague says. Poots, 41, a Celine Dion fan, is known by colleagues for his dry humour. There's a chance Gregory Campbell MP could still secure this ministry.

SINN FEIN CONOR MURPHY, 43, is one of his party's brightest players who will be a capable regional development minister.

He comes from a well-known south Armagh family. As a teenager, he was jailed for IRA membership and possession of explosives. But he has left his past long behind and unequivocally condemned republican youths who recently attacked police in Crossmaglen.

Fiercely ambitious, he's a future Sinn Fein leader. His only weakness is a slightly dull persona. "Conor goes to the gym in Newry but rarely talks to anybody, which is strange for a politician, " says a local. "He should be more outgoing."

CATRIONA RUANE, 44, is an ex-international tennis player from Co Mayo.

The future education minister is a former west Belfast festival director and led the 'Bring them Home' Colombia Three campaign. She lives in Co Louth with husband, Brian McAteer, who was once prosecuted for travelling under a false passport. Unionists, and some republicans, find her overly sanctimonious. Hugely promoted by the leadership, she could well win the SDLP's Westminster seat in South Down next time round.

MICHELLE GILDERNEW has become the unionists' bogey woman following her comments that she wouldn't give information on dissidents to police. That's unfair. The future agriculture minister is one of the most decent, approachable Shinners as her work with unionists on previous Stormont committees shows. In 1968, police removed her pregnant mother and aunt from a house in Caledon, Co Tyrone, where they were squatting in protest at the lack of housing for Catholics. Gildernew, 37, a mother of two, is completely without pretension. Her time outside politics is spent on "Gaelic football and catching up with the washing."

GERRY KELLY, 54, ex-IRA bomber, will be junior minister in Martin McGuinness's office where he should be working with Ian Paisley jnr, 40, who is tipped to become junior minister to his father. It should be an interesting relationship.

ULSTER UNIONISTS The party has two ministries . . . health plus employment and learning . . . but who gets what has yet to be decided. UUP leader, REG EMPEY, would seem natural for the weightier health portfolio. Empey, 59, is capable but uninspiring and UUP fortunes have further declined under his leadership.

The boldest thing he's ever done was a 13,000ft parachute jump at wife Stella's instigation. If Empey takes health, then education and learning should go to his sparky deputy leader, DANNY KENNEDY, 47, who brings life to a colourless party. Kennedy, an ex-British Telecoms employee from south Armagh, loves old black-and-white Bette Davis and Joan Crawford movies. He is currently learning to swim. But if Empey decides health is too time-consuming (and potentially a minefield) for a party leader, he could nominate ALAN McFARLAND, 57, an ex-British army major from north Down and Mensa member, for the job. Empey might then take employment and learning himself.

SDLP MARGARET RITCHIE is smart and assiduous but it's all ruined by media performances in which she appears, at best, school-marmish; at worst, grey and boring, reinforcing the worst SDLP stereotypes.

Ritchie, 49, a single woman, devotes her life to the SDLP and views MP Eddie McGrady as a father-figure. "After Sunday mass, Margaret drives her wee car down the hill to the SDLP office where she beavers away all day, " says a neighbour. A woman of substance, she must rapidly improve her presentation as social development minister.