Fianna Fáil pragmatism dashes Crowley's Áras ambitions

ANALYSIS:THE WITHDRAWAL of the only person to have formally declared an interest in standing as a Fianna Fáil candidate for the presidency poses a fresh challenge for Micheál Martin's leadership of the party.

Brian Crowley may be the only person in the country who thought he could win the contest, but the manner in which he withdrew yesterday is likely to provoke further soul-searching in the party, following its decimation in February’s general election.

Crowley, through his pointed references to divisions within the party on its electoral strategy and his refusal to answer questions about whether he felt let-down by his leader, has made plain his anger over the way he feels he has been treated.

What is less clear, however, is whether this is symptomatic of a wider disaffection within the party or the expression of one person’s frustrated ambition.

The Ireland South MEP first contacted Martin last April to express his interest in running for the presidency but has effectively been left to twist in the wind since then while the leadership went looking elsewhere.

Although Martin set up a subcommittee to examine whether the party should run its own candidate, support an independent or stand aside from the election, his well-publicised approach to Gay Byrne appeared to reveal a personal preference against running an internal candidate. The veteran television presenter then opted not to run, leaving the Fianna Fáil leader with egg on his face and questions to answer within the party.

Grassroots sentiment within Fianna Fáil is by no means unanimous, but majority support is behind running one of their own in the election on October 27th. The parliamentary party is split; former minister Willy O’Dea, for example, believes the party should not put up a candidate, while deputy leader Éamon Ó Cuív believes it should – and is thought to be interested in the role for himself.

Not running a candidate would save the party some €500,000 it can ill afford to spend, but would result in the party being sidelined for much of the national political debate over the coming months.

What seems to have prompted Martin's decision is internal party polling which shows that Crowley, or any other Fianna Fáil candidate, had no hope of being elected. These confirmed the findings of recent opinion polls: one recent poll gave Crowley just 13 per cent of first preferences, while the last Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll put Ó Cuív on 11 per cent. Both these figures are below even the miserable 17 per cent Fianna Fáil polled in the general election.

For now, most of the rumblings against Martin’s leadership have been confined to a coterie of disaffected veterans, some of whom defeated his choices for election to the Seanad. Once the summer is over, it is clear he faces a considerable task in steadying nerves within the party and providing a clear direction out of its current morass.

As for the race for the Áras, Crowley’s departure is but the latest in a series of twists and turns which is making this presidential election possibly the most fascinating in the history of the State. The Corkman follows Pat Cox, David Norris, Niall O’Dowd and Gay Byrne in departing the hustings.

Meanwhile, the feeling remains that the election is there to be won by an as yet undeclared candidate with the right appeal.