Post-election analysis shows how party's implosion paved way for new landscape, writes NOEL WHELAN
IT IS now just six weeks since the election and attention is inevitably focused on the new Government and the challenges it faces. There have, however, also been occasions to look back at the election itself and seek a clearer understanding of its long-term implications for our party system.
One of the first such events was the traditional post-election forum organised by the Public Relations Institute of Ireland. Last Tuesday they invited two public relations professionals and yours truly to examine the campaign with an emphasis on the communications aspects.
First up was Mark Mortell, who has held a number of leading positions in marketing and public relations in this country and, since last September, has worked as an adviser to Enda Kenny and a key strategist for Fine Gael. He was well positioned therefore to give an insider’s view into the winning campaign.
He addressed head-on the derision directed by some in the media at the repeated emphasis by Enda Kenny and other spokespersons on the “five-point plan”. Mortell argued that, like the “contract” concept Fine Gael used in their 2007 campaign, the five-point plan was designed to communicate to a wider electorate, largely uninterested in policy detail, that the party had a workable plan for government.
He had a point, although the key difference between the two is that while the 2007 contract was a collection of vague aspirations, the five-point plan was backed up with detailed policy documents.
Mortell also told the gathering that rather than focusing solely on Enda Kenny, Fine Gael laid emphasis on the fact that the party had a team of leading personalities who could be senior ministers. This strategy was designed, he said, to contrast with the presidential style and personality-driven politics traditionally adopted by Fianna Fáil and Labour.
The communications professionals in the room, however, will have interpreted this argument as spin. The Fine Gael emphasis on collegiate leadership arose out of necessity. Their emphasis on the team was designed not as some new style of politics but rather to compensate for the perceived weaknesses of their leader.
You can be sure that if Fine Gael had a leader with better pre-election approval ratings, they too would have gone for a leader-focused campaign.
The decision not to play ball with TV3’s leaders debate was also discussed. Mortell told how Kenny’s non-participation was very controversial within the party itself and that canvassers got a lot of ribbing at the doors about Kenny’s no-show. After the event, however, they were seen to have made the correct decision.
Next up was another leading figure in the public relations industry, Conor Dempsey, who was a communications director for Independent candidate Stephen Donnelly’s successful campaign in Wicklow. Dempsey gave a riveting account of how Donnelly, in just 10 weeks, built an election challenge from scratch in a mixed rural/urban constituency. He gave an interesting insight into Donnelly’s decision to run and to offer himself to the electorate as someone with expertise on International Monetary Fund interventions. He said the campaign was staffed by an ad hoc collection of friends, family, former workers and an army of volunteers.
Dempsey told a fascinating story of how a man without a previous profile or party operation managed to win a seat in a highly competitive constituency where there were 14 other Independents in an extremely short period of time.
Ahead of the event, I tried to devise an analogy which would convey to these communication and marketing professionals the impact of the collapse of Fianna Fáil in the political marketplace.
I finally hit on a couple and when my turn came used them as my opening: “What if Guinness suddenly became undrinkable?” “What if Tesco suddenly became toxic?” I invited them to imagine a scenario where some controversy or scandal caused big brands like these to implode.
I argued that the collapse in Fianna Fáil’s support and the resultant transformation in our party system is akin to one of these scenarios and that analysis of the performance of any other players in the political market must be seen in that context.
While not wishing to take from the achievement of Fine Gael or Stephen Donnelly, I pointed out that it was the appalling policies and communication strategies of Fianna Fáil over the last 2½ years, rather than any action by other parties during the campaign itself, which shaped the outcome.
I emphasised, of course, that these were fantasy scenarios and that both Guinness and Tesco will continue to prosper. I argued however that Fianna Fáil as a brand and even as a political party may not survive at all. These are arguments I hope to revisit and explore further here in the months to come.