INSIDE POLITICS:Fianna Fáil could lose half its Dáil seats in an election if its share of the vote dips below its level in the June poll, writes STEPHEN COLLINS
ONE OF the preoccupations of Fianna Fáil TDs as they contemplate the hazards of the autumn Dáil session is how many seats the party is likely to hold on to if it is catapulted into a general election before the end of the year. Of course, the same is true of the Greens.
Following the drubbing which both parties received in the local and European elections last June, the assumption in Fianna Fáil is that the party will almost certainly lose power and a significant number of seats.
However, the scale of the electoral disaster facing the party is still not widely appreciated within Fianna Fáil or even outside it. The common assumption is that it will drop from the 78 seats it won in the last election to somewhere around 60, or a even a bit lower on a very bad day. In fact, the odds are that the outcome will be far, far worse than that.
Everything hinges on whether the Fianna Fáil share of the vote is in the high 20 per cent range or down closer to 20 per cent. The difference between the two positions amounts to 30 seats, or even more. An outcome at the higher end would represent defeat, but one from which a recovery could be planned; if it was to be at the lower end, the rout would transform the nature of Irish politics.
In June, Fianna Fáil won 25.45 per cent in the local elections and 24 per cent in the European elections. If the party slipped a couple of percentage points lower in a general election it would be in a disaster zone, facing an electoral wipe-out. On the other hand, if it gained two or three points it would be back in respectable territory.
One of the anomalies of our electoral system is that a shift of a few percentage points in the 20 per cent range makes a huge difference to the result. This comes about because our system of proportional representation (PR) is tied in with a mix of three-, four- and five-seat constituencies.
On a national average, with 27 per cent or so of the vote, a party will win one seat in every three-seat constituency, one in every four-seater and two in some five-seaters where the party exceeds its national average. This is because a quota in a three-seater is 25 per cent, it is 20 per cent in a four-seater and 16.6 per cent in a five-seater.
On the other hand, if the national share of the vote slips to around 22 per cent, a party will win one seat in many but not all three-seaters, one in most four-seaters and just one in every five-seater.
A classic illustration of the effect is provided by the recent electoral performance of Fine Gael. In 1997 the party won 28 per cent of the vote and 54 seats. Five years later its vote share dropped to 22.5 per cent and the party lost almost half its Dáil seats, ending up with just 31. In 2007 it was back up to 27 per cent and 51 seats.
If Fianna Fáil sinks below the vote it got in June it will be into very dangerous territory, and could end up losing half its current Dáil term. Even with its national average of 25 per cent in June’s local elections, the party’s vote slipped much lower in some areas. For instance, in the electoral wards that make up the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown constituency, the Fianna Fáil vote was a dismal 13 per cent. The party has two TDs in the constituency, the Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Mary Hanafin, and the Minister of State for Children, Barry Andrews. To add to their woes, Dún Laoghaire has been reduced to a four-seater, which means that one of them, if not both, will lose their seats.
The same applies in the four-seater Dublin North, where the 14 per cent the party got in the local election will, at best, translate into one seat rather than the current two. In three-seat Dublin North West, with just 16 per cent in the local election, Fianna Fáil could end up with no seat, and the same could happen in Dublin North Central or North East, where it won less than 20 per cent.
Of course, there are some constituencies where the vote was considerably ahead of the national average. In Clare and Longford-Westmeath where it got over 35 per cent in June, Fianna Fáil could hold its current two out of four. Overall, though, the figures are bleak, and any further slippage could lead to the kind of drubbing that would shock the political system to the core.
Our PR system makes it much harder to assess the prospects of smaller parties. For instance, the Greens won six Dáil seats in the 2002 election with just 3.8 per cent of the national vote. In 2007 the party’s vote went up to 4.7 per cent, but its number of seats remained the same.
In the local elections its vote dropped to 2.3 per cent and it suffered an almost total wipe-out, with just three council seats out of 876. That does not augur well for the Greens in the next general election, but everything will depend on the context in which that election takes place and whether some of the their high-profile TDs can hold their support.
For Fine Gael and Labour, of course, there has never been a better opportunity to make large and sustainable gains. If the party could repeat the 32 per cent it got in the local elections, Fine Gael would increase its seats to 60 or more, and if it could increase its first preference share into the high 30 per cent range, it could win over 70 seats. One way or another, it is set to pass out Fianna Fáil as the biggest party for the first time.
Labour will also gain seats but it will have to do a bit better than the 14.5 per cent it won in the locals if it is to get the 30 or more seats the party has set its sights on.
One way or another, the “vagaries of PR”, as Charles Haughey termed it, will have a decisive impact on the outcome of the next election.