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  Cowen Tries to Stave off Disaster

By Pat Leahy
Sunday Business Post
May 31, 2009

http://www.sbpost.ie/post/pages/p/story.aspx-qqqt=NEWS+FEATURES-qqqm=nav-qqqid=42118-qqqx=1.asp

Taoiseach Brian Cowen will embark on a few days of frantic campaigning as he attempts to rally the traditional Fianna Fail vote to save the party’s local and European Parliament seats - and perhaps his own job - in advance of Friday’s elections.

Today’s Sunday Business Post/Red C tracking poll shows a further decline in the Fianna Fail vote from the last poll a fortnight ago, confirming the cratering of the party’s vote in the low 20s. It is perilously close to dropping into the teens.

The party can expect some ‘candidate boost’ at the local elections, with voters giving their preferences to councillors who they perceive to have worked hard on the ground.

But this can amount to no more than a few percentage points. At 20 per cent of first preference support when voters are asked their intentions in the local and European elections, Fianna Fail is facing a hiding like nothing it has ever experienced.

Voters were asked three questions about their voting intentions: in the local and European contests on Friday, and in a putative general election. In all cases, substantially fewer numbers responded positively about Fianna Fail than just two weeks ago. This suggests that the campaign is making Fianna Fail more unpopular.

While the government was surely not helped by its hesitant and, at times, confusing reaction to the Ryan Report into chi ld abuse in industrial schools, the fall in support for the party also indicates that the unchanged model of Fianna Fail electioneering - going around the country announcing things - is meeting an unresponsive audience.

Cowen is very obviously speaking to a Fianna Fail audience now, imploring the party’s voters to turn out on the day and prevent a meltdown in its vote. Noel Dempsey’s extraordinary appeal to Fianna Fail voters to come out on polling day to give two fingers to the media indicates the leadership is getting desperate.

But today’s poll suggests Cowen is either making little headway, or that the Fianna Fail core vote is much smaller than we had all previously thought. Cowen is a tribal politician but, for many voters, the day of tribal politics is passing.

The reports from the canvass confirm the evidence that the anger against the government - and against Fianna Fail in particular - is not abating. However, it would be foolish to dismiss the strength of Fianna Fail’s local organisation on the ground, or the party’s ability to muster its vote on the day.

The surge in the Fianna Fail vote in the final days of the 2007 general election campaign defied the doom-mongers.

But this seems different, much different - more than just those who dislike Fianna Fail disliking them even more. Fianna Fail faces the greatest electoral threat in its history. There are two questions now: how bad will it get and what will the fallout be? Eoin Ryan’s European Parliament seat is in jeopardy, and he may not be the only one.

Ryan has one thing working in his favour - the splintered nature of the left-wing challenge for his seat. Joe Higgins, Patricia McKenna and Mary Lou McDonald will need to transfer effectively if one of them [McDonald is in pole position] is to take the Fianna Fail seat. On a bad day, Liam Aylward’s seat in Leinster could be in danger, too.

But the most obvious message of the European numbers - where voters were asked their preference for individual candidates, as well as parties - is that, in every single constituency, the last seat will be a scrap between several candidates.

Loss of any of the party’s MEP seats - allied to a share of the vote which is closer to 20 than 25 per cent in the local elections - and the eviction of dozens of sitting councillors would be deeply traumatic for Fianna Fail. The decline of the main government party’s support in the course of the election campaign would provide further evidence that the Taoiseach has a serious problem communicating with the Irish people, a criticism now heard at all levels of the party.

If the defeat is anything like the poll suggests, it is likely to herald calls for his replacement. There is a subterranean conversation in the party about whether it could feasibly replace Cowen after only a year in office; at the moment, most think it could not.

But if the election results are as bad as many fear, the urge to do something - anything - may become irresistible. Fianna Fail certainly values loyalty, but not above all else, and not above power. The simple truth is this: if the result is bad enough, they will come for Cowen.

Fianna Fail’s hope now centres on two things: that the repeated poll findings in this newspaper and the Irish Times underestimate the support for the party, and that the party can stage a recovery in the last days of the campaign. Both are flimsy, but not entirely unrealistic, hopes.

If a government is hugely unpopular, respondents to polls are often reluctant to say they will vote for it. In addition , some voters may seek to reward or support local Fianna Fail candidates, even if they are angry at the government.

There is a wealth of evidence to suggest that local elections are dominated by local issues, even if the debate concentrates on national issues. So Fianna Fail may do a little better than it fears. However, the conditions do not appear to be present for a late surge in support.

But it is the European elections that are more politically important for Cowen and his future. If Fianna Fail holds its four seats, Cowen has a defence: that he successfully held the line in a time of unparalleled hostility towards the party. If European seats go, many TDs will see a vision of their fate in the plight of Ryan and Aylward.

Whatever the final outcome this week, the days of Fianna Fail’s dominance of Irish politics are coming to an end. This is likely to be the last election - at least for the foreseeable future - when the most important question is: how will Fianna Fail do? Fine Gael is replacing Fianna Fail as the largest party, and the Labour Party is chasing it hard for second place in the polls.

Fine Gael’s strength in today’s numbers is across all areas and demographics; its lead over Fianna Fail is between 12 and 14 points.

Even if the government survives the two big challenges of the rest of this year - the fallout from these elections and the autumn budgetary process - it is hard to see the Fine Gael lead being overhauled before the next election.

The party won’t be in power to make unpopular decisions; it just needs to continue playing smart opposition politics. Its leader is clearly a drag on its support, but in a climate where his rival for Taoiseach is even more unpopular, this ceases to matter so much.

The Labour Party is poised for substantial gains in the local elections and is also likely to be in the shake-up for European Parliament seats in Leinster and Munster, where the prospect of gains is now less remote.

However, a more important task for Eamon Gilmore is to position potential Dail candidates in places like the Dublin commuter belt, where Labour needs to take seats at the next general election. Gilmore is at a moment of possibility for the Labour Party, which is at least the equivalent of the early 1990s.

It’s difficult to overestimate the importance for Sinn Fein of retaining McDonald’s European Parliament seat, though today’s numbers indicate that she will struggle. McDonald may yet be rescued by a fortunate sequence of transfers from other left-wing candidates, but she is handicapped by the weakness of Sinn Fein, although the party shows some progress today.

McDonald is an impressive candidate - articulate, personable, media-savvy - but she has been dogged by her poor attendance record at the European Parliament. Her poor record is explicable by the simple and obvious fact that her political importance to Sinn Fein is in Dublin, not in Europe.

However, she flopped badly at the last general election, and if she now loses her seat, the nagging worry in Sinn Fein - that it is forever destined to be a minor player in southern politics - will be reinforced. Plus, the deputy leader will be out of a job.

The Green Party sees a marginal slip today - not in itself significant, but worrying for a party whose candidates often win the last seats. The party has only 18 councillors, but if its ranks are culled, the leadership will face questioning by its grassroots, and the pressure will increase on Green ministers to secure more concessions in a post-election renegotiation of the programme for government.

Unrest among Green supporters would do nothing for their TDs’ ability to live with painful budget cuts, either.

 
 

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