Poll indicates desire for mould-breaking government

INSIDE POLITICS:At two key moments in Irish history, the political rule book was rewritten. Are we set for a third upheaval?

THE IRISH political landscape is about to undergo the kind of transformation that has only happened once or twice in the past century, if the public mood reflected in this week's Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll remains the same for the next few months.

The Fianna Fáil dominance of Irish politics is about to be broken in spectacular style and the only questions are where the pieces will fall and whether the party will have any kind of future in the aftermath.

The two big transformational elections in the past century may provide some guide. They took place quite close to each other, in 1918 and 1932, but the long-term outcome for the defeated party was different in each case.

In 1918, the Irish Party, which had a stranglehold on the political system for almost half a century, was swept away by Sinn Féin. It disappeared forever, its achievements forgotten and its memory almost obliterated by its victorious opponents. Even today, John Redmond and his team get little or no recognition for their enormous achievements.

The second major transformation in Irish politics came in 1932 when Cumann na nGaedheal, the party that established the institutions of the State after a vicious Civil War, was swept out of power. Fianna Fáil, formed from the losing side in the Civil War, became the dominant force in Irish politics.

Cumann na nGaedheal did not disappear like the Irish Party. It became the core of a new party called Fine Gael in 1933 but has played second fiddle to Fianna Fáil ever since then, winning occasional periods in office as part of a coalition with the Labour Party but never establishing itself as a party of power.

New parties came on the scene from time to time only to disappear and be swallowed up by either Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael.

It is hardly a surprise, after the economic convulsions of the past two years, that the old political order is now breaking up. While the shape of the next government is predictable, it is difficult to forecast what will happen in the medium to longer term once the electorate has settled its account with Fianna Fáil.

Even two years ago, the idea Fianna Fáil would sink as low as 17 per cent in an MRBI poll with a core vote of just 13 per cent would have been unthinkable. When combined with a satisfaction rating for Taoiseach Brian Cowen of 14 per cent, and a Government rating of just 8 per cent, the only question is how bad the election defeat is going to be.

One parallel is the disaster that befell the Canadian Conservative Party of Brian Mulroney in 1993. Having been in power for 10 years, Mulroney – from an Irish-Canadian background – saw his personal rating plummet to 11 per cent with his government on a rating of 10 per cent. He resigned a few months before the election but his successor, Kim Campbell, presided over one of the biggest defeats ever seen in democratic politics with her party going from 151 seats in the federal parliament to just two.

The Irish electoral system will protect Fianna Fáil from a defeat of that magnitude but the Canadian experience has two powerful lessons. The first is that a long-established party can be swept away in one election. The other is that changing an unpopular leader in the run-up to an election will not necessarily make things better and could make them worse.

Most people in Irish politics still believe Fianna Fáil will manage to get more than 20 per cent when the election comes. That would give the party 30-40 seats and leave it in a position to rebuild for the future but, given the mood of the electorate, that scenario could be too optimistic.

The future of Fianna Fáil will depend on how the other parties fare and what form the next government will take. It will have to make a decision on whether to revert to its traditional populist approach in opposition where it will be competing with a strengthened Sinn Féin and a range of vocal left-wing TDs or to adopt a more positive stance towards a government grappling with enormous problems. It will need time to come to terms with the new political reality.

At this stage, it looks as if Fine Gael will be the biggest party with about 60 seats, while Labour will have about 40. While those two parties are expected to form a coalition, the allocation of portfolios and their influence on policies will depend on relative strengths.

While the emergence of a new Fine Gael-Labour coalition is the most likely outcome, it is not the only one. If Labour is closer to 50 seats than 40, and there is a strong Sinn Féin presence in the next Dáil as well as a bloc of left-wing TDs, there will be pressure from some quarters on the Labour leadership to forge a left-wing alliance.

It has long been the dream of the left to force Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael together and divide Irish politics along a conventional European left/right spectrum. The Irish Timespoll gives Labour, Sinn Féin and Independents/Others a combined total of 51 per cent of the vote, very close to the 55 per cent of the combined Fine Gael-Labour vote.

However, one big mistake made by some who would like to see the emergence of a strong united left is to assume there is much common ground between Labour and Sinn Féin. Many in Labour do not regard Sinn Féin as a left-wing party at all but as a radical nationalist party who have more in common with right-wing anti-EU parties across the Continent than with the Labour movement.

When it comes to seats, the combination of Fine Gael and Labour is likely to be far greater than the combination of Labour, Sinn Féin and left-wing groups, so the odds are still on a Fine Gael-Labour coalition. How such a government will fare will depend on its energy and innovation. It will also need a lot of luck, but it could become the first Fine Gael-Labour coalition to win two terms.