Fianna Fáil's process of selecting candidates is seen as a major factor in the scale of its losses, writes NOEL WHELAN.
SOME OF the initial hyperbole about the impact of last week’s elections on our politics and our party system has died down. Most politicians, party strategists and observers are beginning to see it for what it was – a massive shift in political support away from Fianna Fáil towards Labour and Fine Gael in Dublin and towards Fine Gael in the rest of the country.
Seeking to draw direct and immediate parallels between last weekend’s local and European results and what would happen in a general election is unwise.
Some initial conclusions have formed within Fianna Fáil as to the reasons for and consequences of the party’s very bad performance, and this week I had the opportunity to canvass opinion at Fianna Fáil parliamentary party, national executive and grassroots levels.
There is a realisation of the scale of the shrinkage in party support. For the last nine months opinion polls suggested as much but some sought to dismiss low ratings as some statistical quirk or inappropriate adjustment. The low vote obtained last weekend, particularly in the local and byelections, confirms the opinion poll trend.
Fianna Fáil’s local election vote at 25.4 per cent is just a few points up on that achieved in both TNS/mrbi and Red C polls. However, most within the party realise that, for the reasons suggested by Garret FitzGerald and others in these pages, the party’s support in a general election is likely to be considerably lower.
Some 3,200 voters were interviewed for last weekend’s RTÉ/Lansdowne exit poll. While 24 per cent said they had voted for Fianna Fáil in the local elections, only 21 per cent said they would vote Fianna Fáil if a general election was held soon.
What is particularly unnerving for the party is that in the last two elections the party’s local government representation has been almost halved. The party is alive to the severe implications this has for the party organisation and its capacity to represent many local areas.
Almost all of those to whom I spoke identify the party’s candidate-selection process as a major contributory factor to the scale of the losses.
While they know that the state of the economy, the public’s placing of responsibility for it at the Government’s doorstep and communication issues are the primary reasons for the support collapse, they say these factors alone cannot explain the losses.
In almost all local electoral areas Fianna Fáil abandoned the traditional method of selecting candidates at a local convention of party delegates. Candidates were instead selected through an interview process overseen by party headquarters.
The Fianna Fáil national executive has long had the power to approve candidates and regularly used this power to set the number of candidates to be selected by convention and to add candidates if the line-up selected locally was not perceived to be strong enough.
Since the 1990s the national executive has played an increasingly significant and more direct role in candidate selection for Dáil elections through a committee originally chaired by Ray MacSharry and later by Brian Cowen. In the lead-in to the 1997 and 2002 elections this committee of leading national party politicians and strategists supervised candidate selection in almost all Dáil constituencies.
The committee carried out relatively sophisticated polling in key marginals, often testing several potential candidates and canvassing local opinion within and outside the party on their strengths. Those offering themselves for selection were interviewed by a committee of leading politicians. Where necessary prominent local figures outside the party were approached to stand. Having identified its ideal line-up, the committee set about persuading the local organisation and strong-arming deputies to deliver it at convention. Where this was not possible conventions were held but allowed to select one candidate short of the desired line-up and the committee itself recommended an additional name to the national executive.
All of this was done carefully by a committee of respected party strategists and politicians and with at least some regard to the need for local organisation buy-in. It also proved relatively successful, with almost all candidates so selected in 2007 being elected.
In contrast, the national party’s involvement in candidate selection for these local elections appears to have been shambolic. Candidate interviews were conducted by panels which often did not include a politician or even a national executive member.
At the parliamentary party meeting on Tuesday night and more widely deputies gladly exchanged horror stories about the involvement of party headquarters in candidate selection in their areas.
One told how potential candidates were asked to show the interview panel where they lived on a map of the constituency. Another deputy told of how some candidates were asked questions about their domestic arrangements.
Another recounted how one sitting councillor and one former councillor were told at interview they were not wanted and written to by headquarters telling them they didn’t have the appropriate profile – only for headquarters to change its mind and ask the candidates to stand two weeks before the election.
Candidate-selection issues do not explain the scale of the Fianna Fáil setback but in this initial phase they are the biggest talking point within the party.