ANALYSIS:Whether or not the Taoiseach survives his motion of confidence, the party is in despair, writes STEPHEN COLLINS
BRIAN COWEN’s decision to defy his critics and put down a motion of confidence in his leadership at tomorrow’s parliamentary party meeting was a bold move that put it up to potential rivals to move against him now or forfeit their chances of ever succeeding to the Fianna Fáil leadership.
Cowen’s decision to bring the issue to a resolution, one way or another, left Micheál Martin with little option but to respond to the challenge. It was either that or make it clear that he had full confidence in the Taoiseach to lead Fianna Fáil into the election campaign.
While Martin made no public criticism of the Taoiseach since the latest crisis erupted a week ago, it was clear among Fianna Fáil TDs that he was orchestrating pressure on Cowen to step down in recent days.
While Martin faces the prospect of a humiliating rebuff if the parliamentary party votes confidence in Cowen, not to have moved at all would certainly have been worse for his long-term ambitions. If he declined to fight for the leadership, it would have reinforced the image of indecisiveness that has dogged him since his period as minister for health and would inevitably have told against him in any post-election contest.
The same arguments apply in Mary Hanafin’s case. Like Martin, she has made no public criticism of Cowen but nobody in the party doubts that in her conversation with the leader she told him it was time to go.
Brian Lenihan, the third possible contender, appears happy enough with the prospect of Cowen staying on as leader for the election. Or it might be more accurate to say he does not seem enamoured by the prospect of Martin taking over.
The mood of the Fianna Fáil TDs who will be left standing after the election is impossible to determine at this stage. But the strong argument for skipping a generation would have been reinforced if none of the experienced Ministers was prepared to challenge Cowen.
The Taoiseach’s decision to confront the issue head-on, instead of waiting to see if 18 TDs were prepared to sign a motion of no confidence, has given him an initial advantage. He has taken a leaf out of Enda Kenny’s book by seizing the initiative to protect his position.
There is one big difference with the heave against Kenny, though. The Fine Gael leader was fighting for his chance to become taoiseach after the election. Everybody knows that Cowen has little or no chance of leading his party back to power.
On the face of it, Cowen appears to have the numbers to win comfortably, but some of the TDs who have not been prepared to tell him directly that it is time to go may take a more negative attitude in a secret ballot.
One way or another, they are all heading into an election campaign with the party in the worst shape in its history.
There is a mood of despair across the board, with many TDs resigned to the loss of their seats.
That is one of the reasons that so many TDs, after much agonising, have concluded that there is no point in changing the leader at this stage as it will not make any difference.
In conversations with some of his supporters in the parliamentary party, Cowen asked them to put aside their personal friendship with him and tell him whether they thought he should go. The most common response seems to have been that they told him they would be happy with whatever decision he arrived at.
The consultation process was long and detailed but it simply reinforced the image of a rudderless Government that has no idea how to respond to the extraordinary level of public hostility it now faces. The dithering of Cowen and his party over the past week is symptomatic of a level of indecision in Fianna Fáil that has crippled it in recent years and brought it to the current situation.
From the very beginning of the economic crisis in the summer and autumn of 2008, the reaction of the Government, and Cowen in particular, was too slow, as things got progressively worse.
On the political front, there was an overwhelming case last autumn for the Government to formulate a four-year austerity plan and go to the country to seek a mandate to implement it.
The outcome would have been certain defeat for Fianna Fáil and the Green Party but both parties could have offered the electorate a coherent message and stood on a record of tough, if deeply unpopular, decisions.
At that stage, Fianna Fáil could have gone into Opposition with between 40 and 50 seats while handing over the responsibility for charting a way out of the mess to Fine Gael and Labour.
Instead, the Coalition took far too much time to come up with its four-year plan. By the time it was ready, the European Central Bank had lost confidence in the Government’s ability to run its own affairs and the EU-International Monetary Fund bailout was imposed unilaterally.
The necessity for outside intervention destroyed whatever public confidence was left in the Government’s ability to run the country. That is why the Coalition’s stated aim of staying in office for another three months to pass vital legislation has only deepened its unpopularity.
When the position in Fianna Fáil clarifies itself in the next few days, the Opposition parties are likely to make a determined effort to force an immediate election.
Winning the vote of confidence from his TDs is just the first hurdle facing the Taoiseach this week.