In the face of their electoral defeats six months ago, the two larger opposition parties have changed their leaders, and the Green Party has for the first time chosen a party leader, writes Garret FitzGerald.
Battle has yet to be seriously joined in the new Dáil between Government and opposition, and it remains to be seen how these three politicians will fare in their new roles.
However, Dáil performance represents only part, albeit a very important part, of the job of party leadership.
Another key test of leadership is the capacity to reorganise a party machine to enable it to win elections.
Leaders also need the charisma to galvanise party members into action, and the ability to come across effectively to the electorate through television, and to a lesser extent on radio and through the print media.
Finally, while it is possible in certain circumstances for political leaders to succeed through pragmatism alone, a leader seeking power without a clear sense of purpose is at an obvious disadvantage, especially in opposition.
Opposition must above all be a preparation for government, and in the period ahead the larger opposition parties have to convince the public that, jointly as well as individually, they have the capacity to offer a worthwhile alternative to the incumbent Government.
In the run-up to an election the interaction between these parties needs to be sufficiently positive for the electorate to believe both that together the opposition parties have a real chance of securing enough votes to form a government, and that they also have the capacity to work together successfully in any new administration.
These are the qualities which the "floating voter" element, which ultimately decides the outcome of elections, will be looking for from the present opposition parties between now and the next general election. Because if these elements are lacking, the electorate, even if unenthusiastic about the government in office, will prefer to stick with the government it knows.
There was a prime example of that phenomenon in 1969 when an outgoing Fianna Fáil government, already in office for 12 years, actually gained three seats with a reduced vote, giving it a Dáil majority which it had not enjoyed since 1961.
Why did that happen?
Quite simply because on that occasion Labour's unequivocal pre-election rejection of a coalition with Fine Gael lost it both first preference votes and transfers from Fine Gael in almost every part of the country outside Dublin.
As a result, Labour lost no less than half of its 16 seats in those constituencies, a loss which was not compensated for by a gain of four seats in the capital.
In the recent election Labour did not exclude a coalition with Fine Gael - indeed it even expressed a preference for such an outcome.
Yet by leaving open the prospect that it might once again govern with Fianna Fáil, it cast doubts on the prospects for such an alternative government. It therefore lost what might have been a good chance for it to win both votes and seats - although that prospect was also damaged by the visible weakness of Fine Gael
The consequent political vacuum gave Michael McDowell his chance.
In the absence of any real prospect of an alternative FG-Labour government, he successfully fanned fears of Fianna Fáil winning an overall majority and sold a "least-bad" alternative - one in which Fianna Fáil would continue to be constrained by having again to accept the PDs as coalition partners.
The truth is that democracy works best when a credible alternative exists to the incumbent government.
While the electorate may still choose to re-elect the outgoing administration rather than the alternative being offered, voters need to be offered a real choice.
Since 1989, Fianna Fáil has shown that it is equally prepared to offer right-wing government in partnership with the PDs, or moderately social democratic government in conjunction with Labour. Yet it is not good for democracy that one party remains permanently in power, alternating between right-wing and left-wing partners.
And if we are to revert to the more democratic political process of offering the electorate an actual choice between alternative governments proposing alternative policies, it would be better for the main parties in opposition to share as much common ground as possible before an election.
Since 1973, Labour and Fine Gael have been elected to government three times.
In addition to sharing throughout much of this period a common viewpoint on Northern Ireland which was distinct from that then espoused by Fianna Fáil, on each of those occasions the two parties also offered a social democratic alternative which incorporated a strong, shared commitment to social justice.
My personal commitment to such an approach was reinforced by what I believed from the 1960s onwards to be the gradual emergence within Fianna Fáil of an element of corruption which eventually started to spread beyond that party's boundaries. I believe politics at the national level had been notably free of this during the first 40 years of the State's existence.
HAPPILY that divisive and damaging element is now in the process of being purged from our politics at national level. Indeed, it would be dishonest, and dishonourable, to suggest that any of the Fianna Fáil politicians who have been elevated to Cabinet during the past decade are tarred with that particular brush.
I believe that issues of personal honesty will in future no longer provide grounds for choices by voters at election times.
However, as Fianna Fáil TD Ned O'Keeffe has recently trenchantly remarked, since 1989 Fianna Fáil-led governments seem to have been increasingly pulled to the right by their PD partners, away from what had earlier been a fairly pragmatic but socially-concerned Fianna Fáil political stance.
There has thus emerged within our political system a divergence on social issues which is more clear-cut than anything previously known. This divergence reflects the fact that during the past decade inequalities within our society have for the first time been deliberately widened by skilful manipulation of the tax system in favour of the better-off.
This situation clearly poses a challenge to Fine Gael in particular.
There have been times in recent years when that party's commitment to social justice, which goes back to Declan Costello's Just Society initiative of 1965, has seemed to lose some of its clarity.
In the interest both of social equity and of the emergence of a clearly-defined alternative to the present Government, it is, I believe, time now for an explicit redefinition by Fine Gael of its social objectives, backed by an uncompromising stance against right-wing Government policies.
Of course, in the years immediately ahead Fine Gael and Labour will be competing for electoral support against each other as well as against both Fianna Fáil and the new smaller parties. But if the two main opposition parties are to succeed in offering, and securing, electoral support for an alternative government, this competition will need to be carried on within a framework of common purpose.
That is the challenge which is now facing the two new party leaders, Enda Kenny and Pat Rabbitte.