FINE GAEL TDs and Senators supporting Mairéad McGuinness and Gay Mitchell have claimed that senior officials at party headquarters have been involved in a late drive to rally support for Pat Cox ahead of today’s convention to select the party’s presidential candidate.
The supporters claimed that officials, including the party’s director of organisation Frank Flannery, had been phoning councillors, deputies and Senators, on behalf of Mr Cox. The claim was specifically rejected by Mr Flannery yesterday.
Mr Mitchell wrote to party general secretary Tom Curran formally requesting full details of all polling research conducted by the party on its candidates. In the letter, Mr Mitchell complained colleagues told him the results of the research have “been shared and discussed with them by representatives of Fine Gael HQ”. The research is purported to conclude that Mr Cox and Ms McGuinness would be more popular with the public than Mr Mitchell.
Mr Mitchell, who has dismissed the research as propaganda from the “powers that be”, requested Mr Curran to supply relevant data to him by yesterday evening.
It is expected some 450 of the almost 800 party members eligible to vote will be at the convention. Fine Gael’s electoral college is weighted towards parliamentarians who represent 70 per cent of the vote. Some 20 per cent is apportioned to 630 councillors and the executive council (with 22 eligible voters) has 10 per cent.