Labour is waiting to see if its leader has the stomach for another long period of Opposition or if he will bow out and leave room for someone new, writes Mark Brennock, Political Correspondent
In two months, the Labour Party may stage the most interesting party political experiment of recent times. It is scheduled to ask its entire membership to elect a new party leader before October 25th.
Whether there will be a real contest depends on whether the current leader, Mr Ruairí Quinn, decides he wants to stay on and lead his party into the future.
Mr Quinn is currently on holiday in Spain and will go from there to Connemara later this month. He will return to the political fray in early September, his mind made up as to whether he intends to stay at the helm of Labour.
The party won 21 seats in the May general election, the same number it held in the last Dáil. Asked about his continued leadership in the immediate aftermath of the result, Mr Quinn said it was a matter on which he would reflect.
Senior party figures say that Mr Quinn was privately deeply disappointed by the outcome of the poll, in which Labour had hoped to gain several seats.
Some say they believe he will not continue to lead the party after the summer and that a new leader will be in place by October.
However the decision, they say, is his. There has been some muttering but no groundswell demanding that he should go. All in the party believe they had a disappointing result but, while there has been some nuanced criticism of Mr Quinn's style, none has pointed to him as the central problem.
Ruairí Quinn is 56 and has just come out of a long, gruelling period in opposition without making any electoral progress at the end of it. The question is whether he will decide he has the energy and motivation to lead Labour through another long period in Government and then, at 60 years of age, to lead them into another general election.
Several senior sources who felt immediately after the election that he would quit, now believe he may stay.
Although October's election is for a six-year term, Mr Quinn does not have to have to commit himself irrevocably to that. The next 12 months will tell whether, under him, Labour can be an effective opposition party, curbing the inroads made by independents, Greens and Sinn Féin on its left flank and challenging Fine Gael on its right for leadership of the Opposition.
The next big electoral contest does not come until the 2004 local government elections. Mr Quinn and his party could decide well before then whether or not his leadership is working and whether he should stay or go.
Should he throw in the towel now, the outcome of a vote among the entire party membership contest is unpredictable. There is no certainty at senior levels in the party that deputy leader Mr Brendan Howlin will seek the post. Mr Eamon Gilmore is seen as another leading contender.
However, he would face the difficulty that he is a former Democratic Left member seeking the support of a party membership which is overwhelmingly from the old pre-merger Labour Party. Mr Pat Rabbitte would face the same handicap.
Faced with the uncertainty of the new electoral system, some party figures point to Limerick deputy Ms Jan O'Sullivan as a possible "dark horse" candidate.
The difficulty in pointing to a towering political figure who would instantly galvanise Labour works in favour of the notion of Mr Quinn remaining on.
Nominations for the leadership open on September 4th and close on September 18th. Following a postal ballot, if there is a contest, the new leader is to be in place by October 25th.
Should he decide to stay, senior party sources say there will be no real opposition.
None of those seen as serious contenders for leadership in future is planning to stand against him. There has been speculation that he may be challenged by someone as yet unidentified, therefore forcing a contest. But that candidate will not come from among the party's senior figures and would lose any ballot of members.
The niggling concern among Mr Quinn's supporters, should he decide to stay, is that any significant showing for a "protest" candidate would weaken his authority.
However, they insist that Mr Quinn would win overwhelming support.