Ahern 'flunked' Cabinet test says strategist

Parnell Summer School: The Taoiseach "flunked" the test of choosing his second Cabinet in June 2002 after the general election, according to a former Fianna Fáil strategist.

Mr Noel Whelan, a barrister and author, also said there was a "crucial undermining" of Mr Ahern's authority when he failed to address the widespread impression that his original choice for that Cabinet had been influenced by sectoral or business interests.

Addressing the Parnell Summer School, the political strategist said the "most significant moment for a long-time premier, or one who aspires to be a long-time premier, is the moment at which he picks his second cabinet".

Mr Whelan said a Taoiseach "gets the opportunity to dramatically freshen up his team and to elongate his tenure as premier". In the Irish system, the Taoiseach's power to appoint ministers and assign them to departments, is second in significance "only to his right to seek dissolution of the Dáil". Mr Whelan said that when Mr Ahern came to select his second Cabinet after his second election victory, "frankly, he flunked it".

It was "Bertie Ahern himself who raised expectations that there would be dramatic changes in his second Cabinet" and he reiterated this two days before the reshuffle.

"It was a crucial undermining of his authority as Taoiseach for the impression to be widespread, rightly or wrongly, after he announced his Cabinet line-up, that he had been deflected off his original course, apparently by lobbying on behalf of some of those retained by sectoral and business interests."

Giving a political analysis of the 2004 European and local elections, Mr Whelan said the turnout of 59.9 per cent was "truly historic", and he called for the Minister for the Environment or the Oireachtas Environment Committee to initiate and fund research on the turnout and the reasons for it.

"It reverses a 3½ decade trend of declining voter turnout," when, if it had followed the trend, turnout should have decreased to 45 per cent, he said.

Although the Government got a slap in the face, the task facing Fine Gael, Labour and the Greens to lead an alternative government "is not just for them together to win somewhere close to 25 seats but to win those seats from Fianna Fáil, the PDs or 'gene pool' independents."

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