Inside Politics:The sober approach being adopted by Fianna Fáil at this weekend's ardfheis indicates that party strategists have decided to hold their election hand until the last possible moment, writes Stephen Collins.
The Taoiseach and his Ministers are hoping that the Opposition parties will have worn themselves out with promises and publicity stunts before the election is called in a month or so.
"We are going to let the Opposition advance across no-mans land and will hold our fire until we can see the whites of their eyes. Then it is going to be carnage," said one confident Fianna Fáil Minister during the week, as he explained why there would be no big announcements about election policy during the ardfheis.
The problem is that many of the party's backbenchers are not
nearly as confident. Some of them believe
Fianna Fáil support has been eroded steadily since the
beginning of the year and that by the time the Dáil is
dissolved, it may be too late to win it back. "This is far too much
like the run into the local and European elections three years ago.
I think we are at about the same level as we were then and that is
not good enough," said a backbench TD.
However, Séamus Brennan, one of the shrewdest political brains in Leinster House, was quite sanguine at a press conference to announce details of the ardfheis earlier in the week. "The election is a campaign not an event," he said, dismissing the publicity-driven antics of the Opposition parties in recent weeks.
He quoted Seán Lemass's dictum that the plane would only be brought on to the runway when the election was called and take-off would happen after that.
The impression given by Mr Ahern and his Ministers at this stage is that they are not going to compete with Opposition promises to cut taxes, reform stamp duty, deliver extra hospital beds and all the rest of it. The emphasis is on the need to protect the prosperity of the last 10 years through the potentially difficult days ahead.
The Fianna Fáil strategy is to play the responsible Government card but, for all that, it is hard to believe the party won't respond with a serious package of goodies if the polls during the election campaign show the voters are being won over by Opposition promises. For the moment, though, the policy is to cast doubt on the credibility of Opposition promises and on the viability of the alternative government.
"We will promise less because our approach will deliver more," said Mr Brennan, who hinted that one of the central planks of the Fianna Fáil campaign will be to focus not on the election manifestos of the Opposition parties but on all the idle promises they have made in the course of Dáil debates over the past few years.
All of these promises will undoubtedly add up to some astronomical figure in billions of euro, but whether the voters will pay much heed to what was said in the course of Dáil exchanges is another matter. They are more likely to judge the parties by what they are offering in their election manifestos and whether those promises make economic sense.
One of the features of this campaign is that everybody has known for a very long time when the election was going to take place. The Taoiseach forfeited the advantage of keeping the timing a secret on the basis that running the full five years paid off in spades last time around. In recent weeks, he has attempted to sow confusion by suggesting that the election will be later in May than was generally expected. The favourite date now is Thursday, May 24th, but nobody, apart from Mr Ahern, really knows. In any case, it doesn't really matter. The election has to take place by the end of June and a few weeks either way will hardly make any difference to the outcome. The only thing Mr Ahern has been definite about is that it will be a Thursday.
One cause of worry for Fianna Fáil going into its ardfheis weekend was an opinion poll that showed the party losing support in Dublin since the last election, with Fine Gael and the Greens gaining, and Labour holding solid. The result was almost identical to the Dublin findings of the last Irish Times poll, conducted at the end of January. The one exception was the support level for the PDs, which was very low in The Irish Times poll, but was close to its 2002 level in the Lansdowne poll, published yesterday in the Irish Daily Star.
The real worry for Fianna Fáil is that the pattern has not changed over the past two months. If there is no improvement over the next two months, the party will certainly lose a number of seats in Dublin. In the three-seat constituencies where Fianna Fáil has two out of three seats at present, Dublin North Central, Dublin North East and Dublin North West, the party will inevitably lose one, if it only wins a little over 30 per cent of the vote.
In three four-seat constituencies where Fianna Fáil has two
seats, Dublin Central, Dublin North and Dublin South West, the
party will come under severe pressure on that
share of the vote and could easily lose the second seat. Even
in some of the five-seaters where the party has two, like Dún
Laoghaire and Dublin South Central, the second seat will be under
pressure if the vote sinks much lower. Anecdotal reports of polls
conducted by the parties suggests Fianna Fáil is also under
pressure in Cork.
If that is true and it is hurting in the two most populous counties, then the election may not be the foregone conclusion that many pundits have predicted. Everything will ultimately depend on the campaign itself and how Fianna Fáil chooses to fight it.