OPINION:Fine Gael needs to stop bickering with Fianna Fáil and start convincing the electorate that they can make things better, writes KARL BROPHY
IN CASE you haven’t heard, Fine Gael is now, officially, the most popular political party in the State. Even if you have heard, there’ll be a member of the main Opposition party popping up on the radio to remind you any moment now.
From Enda Kenny down there has not been a single frontbencher who has missed an opportunity this week to revel in their freshly won ascendancy. And, for a party that, by the end of this year, will have spent less time in power than not only Fianna Fáil but Labour, the Greens and the defunct Progressive Democrats over the past two decades the achievement is, indeed, remarkable.
Seven years ago when the organisation was on its knees, with 31 Dáil seats to Fianna Fáil’s 81, the eviscerated parliamentary party met in the Citywest Hotel and set in course a process that would eventually see Enda Kenny, by then already a 27-year Dáil veteran, selected as leader.
His promise to “electrify” the party was noted and dismissed. As a brand, Fine Gael was the equivalent of Harp lager and in seemingly terminal decline. Like Old Man River the foot soldiers had become weary and sick of trying. They were tired of living and scared of dying.
The fact that Kenny can now boast 56 per cent more councillors than Fianna Fáil (and almost as many as Labour and Fianna Fáil combined) all over the country is a triumph of tenacity and, for a long time, masochism in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.
It is also, despite all the criticism, a testament to the Mayo man’s leadership.
What has become clear over the last number of days, however, is now that they are the largest party as a result of a national election for the first time since their foundation in 1933, Fine Gael is not quite sure how to behave.
Success fuels expectation and only the absolute turmoil of the two Government parties has disguised the fact that the main Opposition party has flunked its lines since last Friday.
Despite the constant referrals to the result of the local election results, Fine Gael has not actually taken note of what the overwhelming rejection of Fianna Fáil at the ballot boxes actually means.
Three out of four people voted against Brian Cowen’s Government last Friday.
As Garret FitzGerald pointed out in yesterday’s Irish Times this reversal would have been even more catastrophic for the Government if it had been a general election for the simple reason that TDs are responsible for government policy, county councillors are not.
So the proposition that Fianna Fáil has mismanaged the economy has been effectively settled. Yet, in almost every media performance this week, Fine Gael were, like inverted versions of the isolated Japanese soldiers after the second World War, still fighting battles that have already been won.
Kenny and his front bench now have to stop trying to win arguments and concentrate on winning friends.
They must start projecting positively into the future instead of bickering about the past, even the immediate past.
When they speak of their policies, and they do have policies, they must focus on the broad outcomes that speak to the aspirations of the electorate rather than reeling off shopping lists like metronomes.
Yet, almost without the exception, bicker is precisely what every member of the Kenny front bench who has spoken to the media has done since the polls closed on Friday evening.
Fianna Fáil, the anti-establishment party of near permanent government, has discovered that they could drag demob happy FGers into facile shouting matches on the national airwaves which will only ever end in scoreless draws and turn off non-aligned voters.
Even the better performers were guilty and there was one astonishing exchange on RTÉ television’s Questions and Answers on Monday night where Richard Bruton ended up trying to defend, to Minister Micheál Martin, a proposal to cut stamp duty made by Fine Gael from Opposition but implemented by Fianna Fáil in Government.
James Reilly, a politician who unfortunately exudes the impression that he wakes up in a mood to argue with his own reflection, got involved in a shouting match on RTÉ Radio and Simon Coveney started well but fell into the trap of jousting with Billie Kelleher on Prime Time.
There’s also a feeling in Leinster House that Fine Gael’s current biggest asset, George Lee, is so earnest that he’s just one well-placed needle away from an explosion.
Paradoxically, in the current situation Lee is best deployed not in the media, where cynical former colleagues will delight in having him defend political hypocrisies, but on the stump up and down the country where voters will delight in actually meeting him.
Kenny should be dispatching the former RTÉ economics editor to public meetings in every town and suburb in the country with thousands of party membership forms in his back pocket. The more members Fine Gael has, the more ownership of a political movement it will have devolved to the public and it will have guaranteed more votes whenever the general election does roll around.
The Fine Gael leader would also be well advised to appoint a Dublin based TD, Brian Hayes would appear to fit the bill, as the party’s official spokesman on all issues electoral. Strategists like Frank Flannery should be too busy managing the vote to be saying silly things to journalists from the Daily Mail.
In all this Kenny should use Fianna Fáil’s long campaign in the run up to the 1997 general election as its model. Back then Bertie Ahern, and his excellent campaign team, created a sense of momentum and almost inevitability of success not by consistently bad-mouthing the government but by offering hope of a better future.
This was a major achievement because, despite the fact that some voters were waiting in the long grass for Labour, the rainbow government was not exactly unpopular (its approval ratings at election time were almost four to five times higher than those of the current Government).
During the 1997 general election campaign Fine Gael desperately tried to force Ahern to engage on their terms with John Bruton.
It was, as Boris Johnson once wrote about Tony Blair, like trying to pin jelly to a wall. Ahern never fell for it. He concentrated on making people feel good about themselves and good about the future.
There are very few votes left in telling people that Fianna Fáil is bad. They will lose power at the next election not for how they have reacted to this crisis but for leading the country into it in the first place.
All the opportunities now lie in convincing people that things can get better. The maths are simple, Fine Gael needs to go from having the support of one in three voters to two out of five.
They need to capture just over half the anti-Fianna Fáil vote and they have done remarkably well to get where they are today. However, they must make the Government react to them and not get dragged into no-win debates
They need to learn how to be the bigger party.
Karl Brophy, a former Fine Gael press officer, is a partner at Hume Brophy Communications