Michael D versus the minnows in Áras anticlimax
President will have to campaign
PRESIDENT Michael D Higgins will have to take on a selection of minnows as candidates if he is to win another seven-year term in Áras an Uachtaráin.
Fine Gael will tonight endorse his candidacy, but expects that he will actively campaign for re-election against a line-up of relative unknowns.
By delaying his announcement and getting Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil to back his bid, Mr Higgins has ensured his path to a second term will not be obstructed by any big names.
Sinn Féin is expected to put forward a female candidate, while Independent hopefuls include senators Gerard Craughwell, Pádraig Ó Céidigh and Joan Freeman, as well as artist Kevin Sharkey.
Seán Gallagher, who was ahead of Mr Higgins in the polls in 2011 until the infamous RTÉ ‘tweetgate’ controversy, issued an ambiguous statement yesterday that appeared to suggest he also wants an active role in the campaign.
However, Mr Gallagher could not be contacted last night. People close to him were unable to clarify his intentions.
Mr Higgins says he won’t shirk from the debate but added that there is “no reason for a campaign to be down and dirty”. A senior Fine Gael minister told the Irish Independent it will back him but expects he will fight to retain his job.
IT’S hard to imagine a better launch pad for Michael D Higgins’s re-election campaign than a photoshoot with Meghan Markle. As the incumbent Michael D Higgins will be able to use all the trappings of his high office to his advantage over the next three months to promote himself.
Images of the former Labour Party minister and Prince Harry will ensure he gets in all the newspapers tomorrow here and probably in the UK as well.
This week he has some less high-profile but still newsworthy engagements, including opening a Nelson Mandela exhibition called ‘From Prisoner to President’ at Kilmainham Gaol and he’ll be closing the Galway Film Fleadh.
By contrast, people such as Gerard Craughwell and Seán Gallagher will be phoning councillors to see if they will be able to get their names on the ticket.
The decision by Mr Higgins to stall his announcement was at best a bit of old-school political gamesmanship or at worst a deliberate attempt to prevent a contest.
Whichever you prefer to believe, he must facilitate an open and competitive election race all the way to October.
That means engaging with the media who will have questions about what he has achieved in the past seven years.
Without doubt, Mr Higgins has done the country proud on his foreign trips but it would be interesting to hear more about why Colombia was such an important trip for the Irish head of state or the time he spent 24 days in Australia and New Zealand. Remember the time he called Fidel Castro “a giant among global leaders”.
It would be good to understand why he felt that was an appropriate statement.
And by the time this term comes to an end, it will have cost taxpayers in the region of €30m. How that money is spent is largely confidential as the office of President is not subject to Freedom of Information requests. Would Mr Higgins be open minded about being more open?
The suspicion is that Mr Higgins will not be keen to take to the hustings – but that would be ill-advised as it won’t be possible to coast back into the Áras.