Irish boxers sweat over the sport being axed from 2020 Tokyo Olympics
REFLECTING on successful political strategies is part and parcel of being something of a political anorak. The fascination – or affliction – includes observing emerging talents and focussing on how they’ll fare in elections and perform in office.
As a former career politician I still find myself trying on the shoes of the current crop of Dáil players, assessing their brand identity and policy platforms in pursuit of power.
One year ago, as it became obvious Gerry Adams was leaving the field after three decades as president of Sinn Féin, I weighed up the opportunities for Mary Lou McDonald to transform her party into a significant partner in a coalition government. The scenario included the potential to put her in the role of Tánaiste. She ticked boxes in terms of possible electoral success. She was also the only female leader amongst the larger parties. On top of this she has the advantage of being Dublin-based, feisty, articulate and ambitious, with a hunger for high office.
It was an achievement for McDonald to win over the Belfast-based Republican movement to cede leadership for the south. Her coronation as party leader was complete by spring. Then there was the critical ard fheis game-changer regarding the party’s stance on coalition.
No longer would it insist on being the largest government party (a previous impossible barrier), but it would be willing to serve as a junior partner.
So the route to government and ministerial office was obvious. The party would assert itself as the third largest, with a 20pc market share; it must elect 30 TDs to form a block to hold the balance of Dáil power. Without its support neither FG nor FF could pass the 80-plus seat target essential to forming a majority government.
None of this should have been beyond her, given the base she inherited from Adams. At the time poll ratings were within touching distance of FF, 23 TDs,
There were MEPs in each Euro constituency, and they enjoyed a nationwide base of 250 councillors. It was also the largest party in the North. A fresh, modern, feminist, left-of-centre force in Irish politics – not part of the cosy consensus of New Politics or old boys club of Civil War parties, it had unique potential. But a year on, she seems to be going backwards. The momentum has gone amid widespread carping and criticism.
Political leaders, like sports managers, are primarily in the ‘results’ business. Look at their performance in the presidential race represented by Liadh Ní Riada. It was lamentable. She was a woman candidate, and other than the incumbent, the only serving public representative. This gave her a considerable launching pad as a Munster/South constituency MEP. So to end up in fourth place with 93,987 votes was beyond disappointing.
To simply blame the party’s standard-bearer isn’t credible. Ní Riada was personable, and energetic; despite the early reluctance of handlers to open her up to full open media questioning, she proved herself to be articulate and resilient. Her “poppy” comments may have backfired amongst hard-core supporters, but it smacked of pluralism and might have played well with others.
The latest Red C opinion poll will have sent a shudder through SF. Down 2pc to 13pc – compared to FG’s 34pc and more significantly FF’s 27pc. This represents a potentially disastrous slump over the year for McDonald; especially given the likelihood of a general election and Euro and local elections next year.
Again, to lay the blame on frontline personnel does not stand up. Spokespersons such as Pearse Doherty, Louise O’Reilly, David Cullinane and Eoin Ó Broin are all highly visible. They have proven themselves as competitive and on top of their briefs. All of which suggests there are deeper problems undermining the party’s popularity.
My own analysis is while the leadership face on the poster may have modernised, the perception that the hard-core Republican movement ethos and culture is still rooted in the past is hard to shake.
The blind refusal to even contemplate any review of the abstentionist policy of MPs in Westminster, because of 110 years of bitter AngloIrish history, contradicts the repeated rhetoric of protecting the Good Friday Agreement at all costs.
It is doubly hard to defend, given Theresa May desperately needs seven MPs’ votes to secure a backstop Brexit on December 11.
The depth of absolute intractability (despite drawing salaries/expenses/ staffing) denotes a bunker mentality rooted in the past and out of touch with modern political imperatives.
Nor was the party helped by the treatment of Máiría Cahill by Ms McDonald. The police Ombudsman’s report vindicated all Ms Cahill’s claims that the IRA investigated her proven sex abuse and failed to co-operate with any form of mandatory reporting to the authorities.
SF should have been considerably more sensitive to publicly amending the record and according Ms Cahill a contrite correction about the cover-up.
The departure of TDs Peadar Tóibín and Carol Nolan also probably means party seat losses in Meath and Offaly.
A degree of flexibility could have prevented this – without undermining overall stance on repealing the Eighth Amendment. Up to 30 councillors have resigned or been axed.
All were unnecessary, avoidable own goals.
But, for my money, the most critical reason for Sinn Féin’s regression is its using of Brexit to press hardest now on the Republican movement’s number one strategy on unity.
It seeks destabilisation within the North to prevent any power-sharing in the devolved executive. The abstention of MLAs in the North and at Westminster while at the same time earnestly seeking to be in power in the south to promulgate unity, undermines its credibility.
It understandably jars with the Republic’s electorate.
An RTÉ/BBC poll for Brexit on the ‘Claire Byrne Live’ programme was revealing. Asked: do you think Brexit will make a united Ireland more or less likely, only 35pc in the south felt it more likely, compared to 62pc in the North. The party’s conflating of Brexit with a Border poll is toxically divisive. I believe southern floating voters abhor the bigotry epitomised by the latest reversion to tribal politics by SF and the DUP. Neither will be picking up the minimum £10bn annual state subsidy tab to prop up the dependent six-county economy should London call a halt.
Ní Riada’s presidential unity platform dissolved beneath her feet.
If Mary Lou wants to become our next Tánaiste, she’s some tough choices to make. Failure to emerge from the shadow of Gerry Adams’s Belfast Brigade places a hard Border on her ambitions for power.