The swing is with Enda Kenny - but his party must improve its vote in target areas, writes Noel Whelan
Much has been made of the fact that although Fine Gael's vote share in 2002 was down only 5.5 per cent, the party lost 40 per cent of its seats. Fine Gael had polled 28 per cent in 1997 and this fell to 22.5 per cent in 2002. It won 54 seats in 1997, but tumbled to 31 seats in 2002.
These figures are used to argue that Fine Gael was in some way short-changed by the electoral system, or unlucky that a relatively small drop in vote share caused this avalanche of seats.
However, as the table here shows, there were only five constituencies, at most, where Fine Gael had anything close to the vote share required to suggest that they should have won an additional seat.
In 2002, Fine Gael had 0.9 of a quota in Dún Laoghaire and one might assume that the party was unlucky not to win a seat there. However, the reality is that the party created its own bad luck by running three candidates, one of whom was added just three weeks before polling day.
Fine Gael had contrasting fortunes in the two Kildare constituencies. In Kildare North the party polled 17.5 per cent of the first-preference vote. Even though this was only 0.7 of a quota, Bernard Durkan managed to hold his seat, albeit by only 135 votes. In Kildare South the party had almost the same first-preference vote, but Alan Dukes lost his seat, again by a narrow margin of 187 votes.
The only place where Fine Gael can justifiably feel cheated by the vagaries of transfers in 2002 was in Dublin South East where Frances Fitzgerald lost her seat even though she had four-fifths of a quota in first preferences. The reality is that Fine Gael lost seats in 2002 not because it was punished by the peculiarities of our electoral system, but because it did not get enough votes, to paraphrase Frank Cluskey's statement of the obvious.
This time, in order to regain seats in target constituencies, Fine Gael not only needs to improve its vote share - it needs to do so significantly.
An examination of Fine Gael quota shares on the basis of its 2002 performance puts the party within one-half of a quota of an additional seat in 21 constituencies. The type of improvement in Fine Gael's performance on 2002, reflected in last weekend's Irish TimesTNS/mrbi opinion poll, will see it making gains of the order suggested by its director of elections Frank Flannery. Of course, the usual caveats about margins of error in polling apply. The ground could still shift in the week of campaigning that remains.
There are three further reasons why Flannery's projection has to be approached with caution.
First, Fine Gael is disadvantaged by the incumbency factor. The candidates who displaced Fine Gael TDs in 2002 will not be easily dislodged. The fact that seven of the 23 Fine Gael deputies who lost out in 2002 are recontesting in their constituencies in 2007 will not dent a considerable disadvantage posed by the incumbents.
Flannery argues, with justification, that the party has many interesting new candidates whom it blooded in the 2004 local elections.
However, the introduction of the dual mandate ban meant they were not competing with sitting TDs or senators and, unlike outgoing deputies, these new Fine Gael candidates have had to start from scratch in their efforts to attract support beyond their local electoral bases.
Second, Fine Gael is running too many candidates in some constituencies.
In 10 of its key target constituencies the party is running at least one more candidate than it did in 2002. It has a candidate too many in Louth, where it has one seat, is hoping to win two seats, but is running three candidates.
In Dublin North East, where it has no representation, it is running two candidates in a three-seater and hoping to win one seat. Dublin South, Cork South Central and Laois/Offaly are crucial five-seaters where Fine Gael has just one seat and is hoping to win a second. However, the party is running three candidates in each. Equally questionable is the wisdom of running three candidates in Dún Laoghaire where it currently has no seat.
The party's candidate strategy is even more peculiar in Galway East and Clare. Both constituencies are four-seaters where Fine Gael holds one seat and is running four candidates in both.
The party argues that these additional candidates each bring a distinctive geographic appeal or other dimension to the party ticket. This may be the case in some instances, but in many areas the additional candidates were added because the "wrong" candidate was selected at convention or because polling showed the original line-up was not strong enough.
The enlarged tickets it has in these constituencies leave Fine Gael exposed to the risk that, if it gets a significant swing, the increased vote share will be scattered among too many candidates. It is worth bearing in mind that in 2002 just over one-third of available Fine Gael transfers went outside the party instead of to party colleagues.
Thirdly, there is a prospect that even on a good day nationwide, Fine Gael could lose its current seats in places like Galway West and Donegal South West. In both areas the party persuaded its outgoing deputy to reverse a previously announced decision to retire. Not only does the party face the emergence of a strong Green challenge in Galway West and a strong Sinn Féin challenge in Donegal South West, voters may also be reluctant to give the long-standing local Fine Gael deputy a valedictory term.
The swing is with Fine Gael. Putting enough seats together with Labour and the Green Party to see Enda Kenny elected taoiseach on June 14th (or shortly thereafter) is not an impossible task. But it is a steep climb.