Enda Kenny would be right to keep his party out of a presidential contest and he should be straight about the reasons, writes Mark Brennock, Chief Political Correspondent.
There is a very good reason for Fine Gael to decide not to run a candidate for the presidency in the autumn. It is that any candidate it persuades to go forward is almost certain to lose and to lose badly, and may well be beaten into third place by the sitting President, Mrs McAleese, and a Labour Party candidate, possibly Michael D. Higgins.
Such an outcome would be a disaster for Fine Gael. It would provide a major distraction from the party's aim of presenting itself to voters in 2006 or 2007 as the credible core of an alternative government.
A good party conference performance by Enda Kenny seven weeks ago has at least temporarily stemmed the tide of demoralising "Fine Gael is dead" stories. The party is now depicted in the media as showing signs of life and Fine Gael hopes this will feed party morale and a public perception that the party is worth considering.
But local elections in June, in which it lost seats, followed by an autumn presidential election, in which its candidate came third, would be more than enough to ensure the "dying party" label it has been trying to shake off since May 2002 is firmly stuck to it again.
It could also stir the "shoot-the-leader" tendency, a crowd who have had three outings within Fine Gael since Austin Currie lost to Mary Robinson in the 1990 presidential election.
So Enda Kenny's decision to try to get off the train gathering speed towards a potential autumn calamity makes perfect pragmatic sense. He knows that Fine Gael is currently not even close to challenging Fianna Fáil's dominance, and that it is unable to find a candidate who could give Mrs McAleese - or another strong Fianna Fáil presidential candidate - a run for their money. He inherited this situation and is entirely blameless for it.
But the unrealistic preconditions he set for an exit from the presidential contest have made him appear indecisive and vague this week. In an interview in The Irish Times earlier this month he said he would recommend to Fine Gael that they support the sitting President, Mrs McAleese, should she decide to nominate herself to run again, and should she run as a non-party candidate.
In relation to the first condition, all previous Presidents who have sought a second term have nominated themselves, so such a move would not define her as any less party political than, say, Eamon de Valera when he ran successfully for a second term against Fine Gael's Tom O'Higgins.
On the second point, if she is unopposed, then she could well be depicted as a non-party candidate. But if she is opposed - and Labour has said it intends to run a candidate - then Fianna Fáil would undoubtedly back her. What would Fine Gael expect her to do - refuse the offer of a campaign machine and funding when faced with an opposition campaign funded and supported by Labour?
Mr Kenny's position appears to have been predicated on the hope that nobody else would run and that Mrs McAleese would be unopposed. Now that this appears not to be the case, Mr Kenny's preconditions appear very unlikely to be met. On Monday night's Questions and Answers programme he was unconvincing as he sought to defend his stance. If he wants to stay out of the contest, he must refine it.
It could have been so much simpler. He could have simply said that the local and European elections and the general election after that were his priorities, that he had a party to build up and that it would not be taking part in the presidential contest.
Or he could have gone further and said Mrs McAleese was a fine President and that he would support her to break the mould of partisan party politics; that the time was gone where Fine Gael would oppose a good and popular President just because she had a Fianna Fáil label attached to her. If he wants to stay out of the contest, he has to adopt one of these positions now.
Fine Gael has so far failed to attract a high-profile candidate to run for the European Parliament in the four-seat Dublin constituency. It is therefore unsurprising that it has few hopes of attracting one to contest the presidency. The party's presidential candidate in 1997, Ms Mary Banotti, received a creditable 29.3 per cent of the vote. However, the party's 1990 candidate, Austin Currie, persuaded to run against his better judgment, got just 17 per cent, precipitating the leadership crisis that ended Alan Dukes's period as leader.
Suggestions that the current President is unbeatable should - like all such claims in advance of elections - be dismissed. Polls showing large majorities satisfied with a President are not of great significance. Unlike a Taoiseach, there is little a President can do to make people feel dissatisfied with him or her.
Members of the public who have encountered the President in the course of her official duties have nothing but positive things to say about the experience. But it is quite possible that they could feel the same about a number of others.
For Labour to have a chance of a good performance, it must first unite the traditional Labour vote with the anti-establishment voters who tend to wander towards the Green Party, Sinn Féin and independents. In this regard, Michael D. Higgins had a good war last year as a passionate opponent of the Iraq invasion, and is in a good position to attract the radical non-Labour vote. While the Sinn Féin leadership has a high regard for Mrs McAleese, its voters may feel free to support Higgins.
Whether he can attract the traditional Fine Gael vote will determine whether he can mount a significant challenge to the sitting President. Presuming they do not run their own candidate, the position adopted by Enda Kenny and Fine Gael will be very important.
Mrs McAleese is expected to run again, and it is difficult to see her being beaten. However, she has not yet made her intentions clear. Should she opt out, Fianna Fáil would field another candidate and there would be a real contest.