INSIDE POLITICS:Party plans to run more than one election candidate in four- and five-seat constituencies to capitalise on support, writes STEPHEN COLLINS
DELEGATES ATTENDING the Labour Party national conference in Galway this weekend are buoyed up by the expectation that the party is on the verge of a substantial breakthrough at the next election, yet for some the optimism is tinged with regret that they are not doing even better given the scale of the economic catastrophe that has befallen the country.
Opinion polls over the past year and more have shown that support for Labour has almost doubled from the 10 per cent it achieved at the last general election.
The party’s share of the vote in last year’s local elections was not quite as impressive at 14.5 per cent but, given that it did not contest every electoral area, that figure probably understated its real support at the time.
Party leader Eamon Gilmore, whose impressive performances in the Dáil and the media have been an important factor in Labour’s rise, is determined to maximise the party’s potential gains by running a sufficient number of candidates in the next election to capitalise on its increased support.
He has asked the party organisation to run more than one candidate in every constituency where there is a sitting TD and to have multiple candidates in four- and five-seat constituencies where Labour is not currently represented.
Gilmore has learned the lesson of 1992, when Labour did not run enough candidates to capitalise on the “Spring tide” and he is anxious to ensure the mistake is not repeated.
Some sitting TDs are uneasy about having a running mate when their own seats are far from secure, going on past performance. Pat Rabbitte reportedly joked about the multiple-candidate strategy at a recent constituency meeting, saying: “I am not happy about it, but it’s my job to look happy.”
The interesting thing about the polls is that they have shown remarkable consistency now for two years, with Labour running close to 20 per cent, Fianna Fáil in the low- to mid-20 per cent range and Fine Gael in the low- to mid-30 per cent range.
Experienced Labour activists recall vividly that in the glory days of the 1992 election campaign the party started off with 12 per cent of the vote in the opinion polls when the election was called and ended up with 19 per cent on polling day three weeks later.
If the next campaign prompts a surge for Labour then the multiple-candidate strategy will put the party in a position to capitalise to the maximum extent. This is particularly important in Dublin where polls show that Labour has established itself as the leading party. In the last election Fianna Fáil won 17 seats in Dublin and Labour just eight. Next time Labour should be able to reverse this.
At last year’s party conference, Gilmore sketched out the ambition of making Labour the largest party, and posters with the legend “Gilmore for Taoiseach” were on general display. While the prospect of becoming the second-biggest party, never mind the biggest, still seems a long way off, the fact that the polls have shown Labour breathing down Fianna Fáil’s neck on a national level and away ahead of it in Dublin gives some credence to the ambition.
It was interesting that in recent days Labour fired the opening salvo in a campaign to get involved in a three-way leaders’ debate when the election does come around. Liz McManus cited the example of Britain, where the three party leaders debated on Thursday night, as something that should be followed by RTÉ next time around.
Involvement in a leaders’ debate with Brian Cowen and Enda Kenny would give Gilmore a springboard to push his claims as a potential taoiseach.
In the 1992 election the notion of Dick Spring as a rotating taoiseach helped to push his party to new heights, and Labour strategists believe that similar conditions will arise in the next election, with Gilmore as easily the most popular party leader.
However, the next election will be a totally different affair from that of 1992 in some very important respects. One is that unlike 1992 when Fine Gael was a declining and unfashionable force, it has now established itself as the largest party in the State for the first time in its history, not only in opinion polls but in the local and European elections last year. While Kenny has a battle to get the public to accept him as the alternative taoiseach, his party has gained much of the ground that might have been expected to go to Labour.
Given the economic circumstances, Labour would have expected to pick up almost all of the disgruntled Fianna Fáil working class support, yet a significant element of it has gone to Fine Gael. Part of the reason for this is that Fine Gael has reacted to the economic crisis with a populist approach that has hoovered up support across the social spectrum.
One of Labour’s main sources of support is the public service workforce where it is widely regarded as the alternative to Fianna Fáil. The pay cuts across the public service have created a golden opportunity for Labour to milk support from the main Government party.
The ambiguous response of the party leadership so far to the proposed new national agreement reflects the importance of the public service vote to the party, but it also demonstrates a potential weakness in the Labour position on a range of issues.
If it cannot commit itself to supporting a deal favoured by the bulk of the trade union leadership for fear of alienating some potential voters, how can it hope to convince the wider electorate that it is capable of making the tough decisions affecting all sections of the electorate that will be required of any government in current circumstances?