INSIDE POLITICS: A general election defeat of the Donegal byelection magnitude would threaten Fianna Fáil's capacity to survive
THE ORDINARY business of politics looks irrelevant in the light of what is happening to the country this weekend but it grinds on regardless. One of the big talking points in Leinster House is whether Brian Cowen will lead Fianna Fáil into a new year general election.
There is a widespread assumption that Cowen will step down as Fianna Fáil leader at some stage before the campaign. However, given the fact that a new party leader has no prospect of being ratified as taoiseach by the Dáil, it could lead to difficulties and confusion during a campaign.
There is nothing in the Constitution or law to prevent a party having one person as leader while another is taoiseach. In the 1950s John A. Costello was a Fine Gael taoiseach going into two election campaigns while Richard Mulcahy was the party leader and a senior member of the outgoing government.
Costello was appointed to the taoiseach’s office in 1948 because Mulcahy was unacceptable to Fine Gael’s coalition partners. In the following three election campaigns of 1951, 1954 and 1957, Mulcahy was the party leader while Costello was either the outgoing or potential taoiseach.
The situation this time around is very different and even more complicated. It would be a very strange election campaign with Cowen remaining in the Taoiseach’s office even though he had divested himself of the positions of party president and party leader while the new leader would be the party’s candidate for taoiseach.
Constitutionally there is nothing to prevent Cowen staying on in the Taoiseach’s office until he is replaced by the 31st Dáil after the next election, but there are a lot of practical questions about how it would work, particularly if, as expected, he is a candidate for the Laois-Offaly constituency. It is difficult to see how the new leader could avoid being overshadowed by his predecessor in the campaign.
In the Dáil last Wednesday Cowen was adamant he had not given anybody to understand he would be stepping down in advance of the election, whatever some of his TDs might be saying. Kildare South TD Sean Power had given vent to the prevailing view on his local radio station, but Cowen insisted he had “given no such indication to anybody, including Deputy Power”.
He went on to say that he had not divested any authority in terms of holding the office of Taoiseach or party leader. “I stand as leader of Fianna Fáil, and I want to make it very clear that, as far as I am concerned, there are democratic processes in our party.”
That reference to internal democratic processes put the issue back to his parliamentary party. If Mr Cowen decides not to step aside, his TDs have the option of trying to remove him but that would be a very messy process in the run-up to a general election.
If Cowen does depart as party leader, either voluntarily or by compulsion, the three obvious contenders are Brian Lenihan, Micheál Martin and Mary Hanafin.
Whether Lenihan would contest a vacancy is an open question. He is dealing with a serious illness and, given the fact that he would face a gruelling campaign and a long period in opposition after it, he might decide his personal welfare should take priority.
He would also face the problem that many of his ministerial colleagues are furious with him. Some of them made fools of themselves as the country slid towards the EU-IMF bailout and they blame Lenihan for not keeping them informed.
Micheál Martin has long been considered a likely future Fianna Fáil leader. A family tragedy kept him out of frontline political debate in recent months but his media appearances in recent dark days for the country have been impressive and composed and he is clearly a potential leader.
Hanafin is the only likely contender to have thrown her hat into the ring. An effective performer in the Dáil and the media she could, as the first woman leader of Fianna Fáil, give the party a different image that might help to mitigate the impending electorate disaster.
The scale of that disaster was made clear by the Donegal byelection result. The party’s vote in one of its last remaining strongholds dropped by an astonishing 58 per cent since the general election in 2007. If a collapse on that scale is repeated across the country in a general election the party will only win about 18 per cent of the vote, precisely the level recent opinion polls have been giving it.
That would translate into about 30 seats in a general election and would probably leave Fianna Fáil the third biggest party in the Dáil.
Considering that it has been the biggest party at every election since 1932 and has been in power for an astonishing 63 of the 78 years since then, a defeat of this magnitude would threaten its capacity to survive.
At this stage there is probably very little a new leader could do to make more than a marginal difference on the party’s fortunes in the election. There is even a strong argument for leaving Cowen in place and waiting until after the deluge to select a leader suited to the new reality facing the party.
One of the striking things about the past week has been Cowen’s assured performance in adversity at press conferences and in the Dáil. His TDs have been shaking their heads and asking why he couldn’t have done that on a consistent basis over the past two years. He would still be a difficult opponent for Enda Kenny and Eamon Gilmore as the political argument develops during a campaign.
Fianna Fáil will probably take a long time to recover from its impending general election defeat but it might be as well to know the scale of the task before selecting the person to lead it.