Stakes couldn’t be higher with Martin’s legacy and Fianna Fáil’s identity at risk
AS the slow dance towards forming a coalition government quickens into a flamenco this weekend, Micheál Martin is preparing to cash in on the biggest gamble of his political career.
After more than three decades in politics, the ultimate prize of the office of the Taoiseach is within his grasp.
The pathway to power has been winding and arduous.
It’s been 120 days since a general election that produced no clear winner and has left Fianna Fáil at an ideological crossroads.
Two crucial decisions were made in order to keep his dream on track.
The first was the decision to rule out Sinn Féin as a coalition partner. This was done to stave off a potential leadership challenge from Dublin-based TD Jim O’Callaghan, who said he would not serve in any government with Sinn Féin. The barrister, of course, will be a contender when there is a leadership challenge.
Galway West TD Éamon Ó Cuív told this newspaper at the time that O’Callaghan’s motives – and that of the other Dublin-based Fianna Fáil TDs – were electorally driven due to the ever-growing support for Sinn Féin in the capital. Ó Cuív wants Fianna Fáil to explore talks with Sinn Féin, a party he believes is more ideologically suited to his.
The second decision was his insistence on going first as Taoiseach in a rotating partnership. While the parties entered into negotiations on an ‘equal’ footing, those around Martin believed it was only right that the party with the most seats should go first.
And Martin has to go first. If he went second, he would certainly face a leadership battle within the party – a battle he would probably lose. In two years’ time, an election could be on the horizon and the grassroots could be hungry to blood a new leader.
A POSITION OF WEAKNESS?
Leo Varadkar has played the situation perfectly, managing to turn a position of weakness, whereby his party finished third in the election and seemingly destined for the opposition benches, into a position of ultimate strength.
He recognises that Martin has boxed himself into a scenario with a limited number of outs. This leverage will be painfully exerted this week as crucial concessions are made on the programme for government document.
Varadkar has, of course, already bowed to Martin’s demand to go first in a rotating Taoiseach scenario. This ultimately suits Fine Gael. Varadkar and Co. are riding high in the polls for now. Many political scientists point out that a sitting government’s popularity will always surge during a crisis, as the public ‘rally round the flag’.
This surge is always temporary. Winston Churchill found this out in the closing months of the Second World War, when the Conservative prime minister was defeated in a UK general election he felt incapable of losing. From
Varadkar’s perspective, the boost he’s received for his handling of the pandemic, and the chance to leave the stage of his own volition, are welcome gifts.
It also leaves Fianna Fáil with the task of cleaning up the mess that is coming down the tracks. The looming crisis in non-Covid healthcare; the bulging social welfare budgets; mass unemployment; the dire economic fallout. Varadkar will return as Taoiseach after two years, when the recovery should be starting to materialise.
It must have been difficult for him to restrain a grin while making the concession to go second in the rotating deal.
In the corridors of Leinster House this week some of Martin’s TDs gave their assessment of the new political dawn.
‘Micheál has to go first because the public need to see some form of change, and a government led by Leo Varadkar certainly isn’t that. Plus, it would all become a bit Machiavellian if Leo went first. They [Fine Gael] could opt to go to the polls whenever they wanted if it suited them.’
Another problem has emerged for Fianna Fáil as they face the prospect of going into coalition with more seats but now significantly less popularity than Fine Gael – the issue of identity.
How do they sell the public the difference between them and Fine Gael when they are making collective decisions.
Alarm bells should be ringing about the trajectory of the party ahead of the next election.
‘I’m not going to lie, identity is a big issue and it’s been raised with Micheál and it’s been raised with me by members locally,’ one TD said.
The Fianna Fáil plan is to take hold of difficult, high-profile ministerial portfolios and make substantial progress in them. These, of course, should remain within the party for the duration of the government.
‘It’ll come down to what we can achieve and the portfolios we get. We need to get housing, childcare and social protection, they’re the areas people wanted significant change in and we have to deliver substantial change in those areas. When you look at the framework document, now it was only a framework document, but it reads an awful lot like the Fianna Fáil manifesto, so our identity is all over it.’
WHILE that may be the case, whether it will translate to votes remains to be seen. If, at the next election, whenever that may be, Fianna Fáil lose seats, the legacy of Micheál Martin will be defined as one of putting his own interests above that of the party.
Conversely, there is of course great opportunity. Having rebuilt the party from near oblivion after the bank bailout, if Martin can successfully navigate the country through a potential second wave of the virus, deal with the financial crises that inevitably will arise during the next two years, and be seen as the steady hand that put the country back on track, he will exit the stage as a creditable leader.
Ultimately, his career in politics will be defined by what happens in the next two years.
Yesterday, Martin was politically out-flanked by Varadkar who stole a march on him by accelerating the roadmap out of lockdown, something Martin had flagged all week as something he would do, to stamp his arrival as Taoiseach.
Martin’s legacy will always be defined by bringing in the smoking ban. He has two years to become better known as the Taoiseach who steered us out of an unprecedented crisis – or the one whose efforts went up in a puff of smoke.