2004 Election Results and the next General Election

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Ireland mobilised last Friday to vote in the European elections, the local council elections, and in a constitutional referendum relating to citizenship rights. Now that the votes have largely been counted, there has been much discussion relating to the results and whether the results of this vote can be extrapolated forward as an indication of the makeup of the next domestic parliament.

Will Fianna Fail be the main party in the next government? Will Bertie Ahern quit as leader of FF to succeed Romano Prodi as Head of the European Commission? Will Enda Kenny, leader of Fine Gael, be the next Taoiseach? How long before Sinn Fein hold the balance of power in the Dail?

Indisputably FF was on the receiving end of a real drubbing in this ballot. However, I am not so sure that this vote sends an unambiguous message to them. Certainly it sends a message that the electorate are unhappy- but about what? The incumbent government has a seemingly endless capacity for smug self-righteousness. The danger is that a handful of issues are identified as being the cause of this problem-vote (do I hear the sound of focus groups assembling in the distance?). However, I do not believe that a little tinkering here and some policy adjustments there are going to appease an electorate that is finally announcing that they have had their fill.

The gains made by the non-government parties are a mixed blessing. That FG has picked itself up off the floor having received a real beating at the last general election is to be welcomed. Enda Kenny is to be congratulated in doing a lot of work at local level that yielded a rich harvest in these council elections. However, the challenge must now be to formulate a local government policy base that is coherent with an articulated national party policy. If they can deliver locally on formalised policy that has an unmistakeable correlation with the national FG brand, then they should be able to follow through this result with a good performance in the Dail elections. It remains to be seen what plans, if any, are in place to follow through on this recent local success- can they build a credible, coherent, sufficiently differentiable policy based platform on which to base their next general election offensive?

The PD’s performance was quite nondescript- they did not do noticeably better, and they did not do noticeably worse. This is a party which seems to have lost it’s bite and I wonder if perhaps Mary Harney might have outlived her usefulness. I am not convinced that the PD’s have the focus and drive that they once had, and I think that perhaps the time has come to ask questions about the PD leadership. Labour has also conspicuously failed to make inroads, but realistically I think that Pat Rabitte must be given at least a few more years to make his stamp on the party. The Sinn Fein gains trouble me, why is a matter for another discussion.

FF are indisputably wounded. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Certainly they have the opportunity to confront issues relating to image and substance before the next big test in the general election. The opposition tactics will depend heavily on whether Bertie stays or goes. I should imagine that they hope he will stay, as he has now become a heavy liability to FF. The opposition must not be seen to campaign negatively or seek solely to naysay FF policies- the electorate will see through this and punish it as surely as they have rebuked FF complacency, arrogance and cynical parochial spending on this occasion.

These most recent results now force FF into being a reactionary government. A party that has built its strong national dominance on an ability to call on an efficient local government grassroots, this grassroots is now hurting. Nationally and locally, they must act with an eye to the next election. If Bertie ever had a vision in respect of governmental direction, that vision is now without value. His actions, now totally cosseted by short term concerns, should be largely predictable to opposition party policy analysts. This hands the advantage to the opposition parties for the rest of the tenure of this government. The incumbents can no longer afford the sort of arrogant mismanagement that has thus far characterised their tenure.

This is not the time to compile a complete catalogue of the failings of the current government. Refusing, for example, to provide clear and lucid answers to direct questions in and out of the Dail, declining to account transparently for parochial spending decisions, and failing to address local concerns in respect of refuse issues or road building projects - these few examples are failures that the government no longer dare to presume upon. Now is the time for the real leader of the opposition to make himself known. Hold the government to account- and when they refuse accountability, invoke the electorate. If the recent voting patterns are indicative, this is not as inattentive an electorate as seems to have been assumed. Hammer home to the government that if they continue to assume that non-answers are acceptable, that the voting public will punish them. FF dare not continue give an inadequate account of their stewardship, the opposition will gain recognition for their pursuits, and the electorate will mobilise next time- having seen that what they have done this time has forced real changes.

After the bloodbath of the last general election, Fine Gael has been given a reprieve, and the opportunity to claim a place in a strong government after the next election. If they do not seize this opportunity, I fear we are condemned to a thousand year Reich- of government by Bertie and his natural successors- Sinn Fein.