Catherine Connolly’s election is a nadir for Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. It is not just the debacle of the campaign. It is the reality that, for the first time since 2007, there will be an alternative government on offer at the next general election.
Sinn Féin was the big winner last Friday and Mary Lou McDonald for taoiseach is now a credible possibility. It is an each-way bet for Sinn Féin. If the left alliance can muster the numbers, that’s fine. But if Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael fall back, and they can’t make it together, Sinn Féin can and would consider a deal with Fianna Fáil under new leadership.
There is deep dissatisfaction in Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael with their respective leaders – but if change is attempted, it is not assured. The Dáil isn’t sitting this week and conspiracy is not remote work – you want to see the whites of the eyes of those who want you to join in a move against the leader. Micheál Martin and Simon Harris are strapped on to the diminished political forces they lead and enjoy the strength of the weak.
Of the two, Harris is in the stronger position, but this is cold comfort – it is a sign of Fine Gael’s decline that there is no alternative leader in sight. The party abandoned the political centre with years of improvident spending and inefficient management of the money it spent. Ignoring its own lack of credibility but repeating its record of stunningly poor election campaigns, it insisted that being a centre ground candidate was a reason to vote for Heather Humphreys.
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McDonald promised a game-changer Sinn Féin candidate and she delivered. Harris promised Ireland’s first Fine Gael president and failed abysmally.
The Fine Gael ecosystem is parched and its circle of decision makers is too small and too incapable of renewal. Fine Gael is the perfect home for a leader to fail and survive – which Harris will.
He is a leader who cannot see straight ahead in terms of leading Ireland, but has a knack of seeing around corners in relation to his own survival. To that end, he has assiduously cultivated the new arrivals. Thirty-four of its 55 TDs and Senators are newly elected after the great evacuation from the parliamentary party at the last general election. Together with the four Fine Gael MEPs, they are the group who would have to vote no confidence in him if push came to shove. It won’t.
Martin is the stronger leader, but is in a weaker position. Unlike in Fine Gael, in Fianna Fáil only TDs count in a vote of confidence in the leader. After a poor campaign in 2020, but a competent one last year, Fianna Fáil got 10 extra Dáil seats with a marginally decreased share of the vote last November. Fine Gael’s bad result meant Fianna Fáil got all the benefit of transfers between the parties.
Of 48 Fianna Fáil TDs, 17 are Ministers and most will not take a forward position in challenging the leader. Several would vote against him in a secret ballot, however. Twenty-nine members of the full parliamentary party, including Senators and MEPs, voted for Billy Kelleher to be the party nominee for president in the face of intense pressure from the leadership, as against 41 for Jim Gavin. There is a committed group of anti-Martin TDs, and the 12 signatures required to trigger a motion of no confidence can be found.
Affection from colleagues has never been the basis for Martin’s longevity as leader. Like Harris, he has been successful in using his party as a vehicle for himself and that benefited enough of his colleagues to ensure his survival in a smaller party. His only consistent position is aversion to Sinn Féin, and now they are at the centre of an alternative government largely thanks to him.
Demographically Fianna Fáil support is ageing and its urban foothold diminished. Dependent on a viable Fine Gael, it is cut off from its once ample hinterland of working-class and moderately left voters. Strategically it is in a precarious position and lacks the energy to reinvent.
Martin is vulnerable. His recent outreach to his parliamentary colleagues, inviting them to his office and seeking them out in Leinster House, is new and – to some observers – amusing. But it might stay the hand of enough TDs to buy time.
Martin understands the importance of time and how to exploit hesitancy. He knows that in Jim O’Callaghan he has a viable successor. Others may be interested too. But O’Callaghan will not lead a knife fight against him.
To withstand the anger directed against Martin he must get from this week to the next. He then must get through publication of the internal Fianna Fáil report shortly afterwards. If he can get from November to December, then it is Christmas. After Christmas, he will be the leader heading towards the White House in March and the EU presidency in July. Time, if he can buy enough of it, is his friend.
There is intense probing among Fianna Fáil TDs. The new intake of younger and largely able ones will be critical in setting the pace or sitting on the fence. Martin is unpopular among many of his own TDs, but that is not new. If he prevails and stays after this presidential election debacle, his achievement on a personal basis almost matches Catherine Connolly’s in getting elected.
Unlike Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil has choices and perhaps just enough energy left to exercise them.
