On the face of it, you might think Bertie is spoiled for choice, but really he has one option only: a minority Fianna Fáil government supported by Independents and the PDs, writes John Waters
To go into government with either Labour or the Greens would be an act of madness. Already, even in the highly charged atmosphere of post-election negotiation, we have had a senior Green Party figure comparing coalition with Fianna Fáil to doing "a deal with the Devil". This is the kind of stuff we've listened to for many years from the Labour Party. It goes down well with the gallery of commentators who were recently predicting that Fianna Fáil would be hammered in the election.
Neither the Greens nor Labour is temperamentally suited to partnership with Fianna Fáil, and it is a measure of the problem that both parties will regard this as a compliment. Both are immature, neurotic and highly susceptible to the mood of Dublin 4, and the experience of November 1994 serves to remind Fianna Fáil that coalitions with parties exhibiting such symptoms are doomed to failure. (Of course, in the long run, Labour did Bertie and Fianna Fáil a huge favour, giving the party a chance to regroup and take advantage of the sudden arrival of prosperity. Had Ruairí not gone looking for a head in 1994, it is likely that some kind of rainbow arrangement would have been elected in 1997, perhaps holding power for the next decade.)
At the time, older readers may recall, the destruction of Albert Reynolds's government was touted by Labour and its media Greek chorus as arising from elevated principles in the matter of paedophilia; with hindsight it revealed a mixture of cowardice and opportunism. Essentially, Labour pulled the plug because it lacked the maturity to withstand the odium of its ideological bedfellows in the media, and because the altered arithmetic of the Dáil since the 1992 election held out the prospect of a rainbow arrangement.
For Fianna Fáil now to enter government in coalition with the Labour Party would be to, in effect, enter a coalition with The Irish Times under the ideological direction of Fintan O'Toole. To form a partnership with the Green Party would be like entering coalition with The Irish Times under the ideological direction of Frank McDonald. How likely is it that Bertie Ahern would put himself in either position, especially since he doesn't need to? A minority government arrangement holds out a high prospect of successful, stable government for a full period. This is because the PDs and most of the Independents will do almost anything to avoid another election. There are no Jim Kemmys to pull the roof down over a trifle.
If Fine Gael knows what is good for it, it will welcome this outcome. The spectacular result achieved by Enda Kenny may have been overshadowed by the majesty of Fianna Fáil's resurrection, but it is impossible to imagine this being other than Fianna Fáil's final period in government for quite some time. There is absolutely no prospect of four successive terms. Brian Cowen will make a great taoiseach, but not for at least 10 years, apart from the 15 minutes Bertie may allow him at the end of this term. This means that Fine Gael, if it steadies itself now, takes a deep breath and thinks through its future, stands to inherit the earth. My view is that it should begin, for the first time in a lifetime, to consider its future separately from that of the Labour Party.
There has been much discussion post-election concerning what went wrong for Labour. The truth is that, if the present conditions of the economy and society continue into the next election, there is no prospect of Labour's fortunes being revived.
Labour's philosophical outlook requires a downturn in the economy and perhaps an emerging context of social crisis. I don't believe this is what the immediate future holds, and it is not in Fine Gael's interest to bank on such a development. Fine Gael missed its opportunity this election by failing to focus on the intoxicating possibility that everything is now changed in Irish politics in a manner utterly different from anything the commentariat had predicted.
Irish society has metamorphosed into a new economic and social reality, but more importantly, has done so on the basis of what to the prevailing political imagination looks like amnesia. A majority of the electorate seems not to remember that Fianna Fáil is synonymous with the Devil, perceiving only a party that has been at the helm during the most amazing period of growth and change in Irish history.
Similarly, the electorate has no reason to perceive Fine Gael as the party of Blueshirts or the heavy gang or a tax on children's shoes. Fine Gael is a blank canvas on to which Enda Kenny and his people can paint whatever their imaginations are capable of envisioning.
Irish politics stands on the cusp of a total reinvention in which the old is renewed and reborn and the pretenders of progressive politics for a generation are left remembering their briefest of springs and lamenting what might have been.