FINE GAEL:Fine Gael has dislodged Fianna Fáil from the dominant position in Irish politics for the first time in three-quarters of a century, writes HARRY McGEE
BY 8PM ON Saturday night, when not even a 10th of local council seats had been decided and not one vote had been counted in the European elections, Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny declared that his party had won the election.
Unlike Mr Kenny’s similar claim of victory on the day of the general election count in 2007, this time there was no criticism of his being premature or of having indulged in political bluster.
By any yardstick, Fine Gael has achieved stunning success in these three mid-term elections. For the first time since the modern iteration of the party came into being in 1932, Fine Gael can lay claim to being the largest party in the State.
This is a shift of historic significance. It will also provide a substantial psychological boost to the party as it prepares for a general election, due in 2012, but which Mr Kenny is convinced will happen within the next 12 months.
Mid-term elections have provided happy hunting territory for Fine Gael under Kenny.
Following the devastating general election of 2002, the party’s efforts to rebuild received its first test and its first strong validation two years later. Against expectations, it returned five MEPs and came within 10 council seats of Fianna Fáil (293 seats compared to Fianna Fáil’s 302 seats) in the elections of 2004.
However, the party’s achievements this weekend are of greater import. While Labour can point to making equally impressive strides, it cannot out- trump the new political reality that Fine Gael has dislodged Fianna Fáil from the dominant position for the first time in three-quarters of a century.
With three elections, there are many narrative strands to be chosen by parties. Given that Fine Gael punched away above its weight in the European elections of 2004, it was natural that it would invite the world to judge its performance in 2009 on the two byelections in Dublin and on its gains in the local elections.
The most powerful illustration of that – literal and visual – was George Lee’s spectacular success in Dublin South where, with almost 54 per cent of the vote, he was easily elected on the first count. His face dominated media coverage over the weekend. It is notable that the last person who managed to get elected on the first count in a byelection was Brian Cowen in 1984.
Having said that, Fine Gael’s breakthrough was by no means unqualified. Party strategists believed the double whammy of two byelection victories, allied to its local elections success, would have placed the Coalition in an intolerable position.
In that context, the result for the party in Dublin Central was disappointing, given the high- visibility and well-funded campaign of its candidate Paschal Donohoe.
In the closing week of the campaign, there was a sense that Maureen O’Sullivan would win on transfers but that Donohoe would at the very least top the poll. In the event, he did not do that.
That may be suggestive of a trend that is paradoxically also true of Lee’s success that is based on the strength of the candidate’s own personality and recognition among voters, rather than on the strength of the Fine Gael brand.
Arguably too, Fine Gael’s success in the local elections can only be regarded as remarkable when compared with the demise of Fianna Fáil. There is a school of thought that says Fine Gael should have performed better than its 32 per cent share. Indeed, judged on its own merits, the party’s gain is relatively modest, with Labour, smaller parties and independent candidates having benefited as much from Fianna Fáil’s plummeting fortunes.
That said, that context can only take the tiniest bit of gloss off Fine Gael’s achievements. In part, the steady if unspectacular seat gains can partly be attributed to one of the quirks of the proportional representation system.
In 2004, Fine Gael’s vote share was 27 per cent yet its share of the seats was 33 per cent thanks to the “seat bounce” it received from good vote-management as well as a fortuitous outcome in the shake-up for final seat in many local electoral areas. It could not expect to get the same 6 per cent seat bonus this time.
Its greatest success in 2004, under the new leadership of Kenny, was returning five MEPs. The party’s aspirations this time around were of trying to retain its five seats and looking to successes elsewhere if it were to lose one.
As things stand, its chances of retaining two in East look marginal but the unexpected outcome of two of three seats in South was a stronger possibility.