DUBLIN will have a new Lord Mayor on Monday evening.
If the Civic Alliance holds up, and it probably will, the person parading in a gold chain from City Hall to the Mansion House, ahead of the berobed councillors, will be Labour's Paddy Bourke. If the Alliance collapses, in this its sixth year, it could be Community member Brendan Lynch.
The balance on the corporation, between FF and the Alliance, is so delicate that fevered negotiations have been in progress for several weeks. The Alliance has the majority, just, and thus the mayoralty and this year its Labour's turn. Bourke won the internal vote, despite desperate opposition from sitting deputies who feel that this high profile year of the EU presidency should go to someone with a Dail seat to hold in next year's election.
The FF candidate is Ita Green but such are the machinations that if there is a chink in the Alliance, FF will back one of the independent/community candidates. In return it wants the independents to support a FE councillor for the Mansion House next year and this is where the problem arises. FE now believes that the independents, who are such a disparate group, cannot deliver on such a deal. Indeed at one stage, FF was considering supporting FG Senator Joe Doyle but believes he also would be unable to reciprocate next year.
If no one goes AWOL, Paddy Bourke should make it but a weekend is a long time in politics.