In a stinging rebuke of the current Fine Gael hierarchy, former party leader Mr John Bruton has blamed two leadership battles in 2000 for collapse of Fine Gael’s vote.
The former party leader was responding to estimates by party general secretary, Mr Tom Curran, that the party would loose 22 seats in this election.
According to Mr Bruton, the leadership battle, which decided in favour of Mr Bruton in December 2000, and then in favour of Mr Michael Noonan the following month "conveyed an impression [of indecisiveness] to the public which has carried through into the election."
"The Fine Gael party," Mr Bruton said, "may have taken a superficial view of the issues and a superficial view of its own problems.
"Instead of focusing on conviction politics and values issues that would communicate regardless of whether the economic conditions were good or bad; it may have taken superficial quick-fix approach, particularly in regards to the leadership of the party which was decided as we know in December 2000 in one way and that in completely the other a month later.
"I believe that if that event [the leadership battle] had not occured, Fine Gael would have done better by a considerable margin."
He also said the reversal of the leadership decision also displayed a lack of "rigour and commitment" to decisions already taken.
Mr Bruton also criticised Fine Gael’s failure to deal with what he described as "the gross mismanagement of the public finances."
Arguing that the were too many promises to increase public spending in the election manifesto, he said it was impossible for the party to put the spotlight on what had been happening with public finances under the previous government.
"We have to account for the fact that FG didn’t manage to deal adequately with the gross mismanagement of the public finance by Fianna Fáil and the PD’s, Mr Bruton said.
"Unfortunately Fine Gael was unable to exploit that partly because it was promising more expenditure and reductions in taxation and by so promising, it was more difficult for the party to criticse what was going on under the previous administration".
Mr Bruton also blamed the refusal of the Labour Party to make a pre-election pact for the poor showing by opposition parties.
"The decision of the Labour Party not to enter into any form of pre-election pact deeply damaged [the prospects of opposition parties]," he added.
"This meant that the electorate didn’t have any alternative on offer."
Under rules of the Fine Gael party, a secret ballot of party members on the leadership must be taken in the aftermath of a general election in which the Fine Gael party leader does not become taoiseach.