ANALYSISHe has had an outstanding political career, winning three elections in a row, presiding over three harmonious coalitions, the Celtic Tiger and - most importantly - the peace process, writes Stephen Collins.
WHEN THE Fianna Fáil Cabinet Ministers gathered at 8.30 yesterday morning in the Sycamore Room in the Taoiseach's department for their normal pre-cabinet breakfast meeting, only one of them, Brian Cowen, was aware that their most successful electoral leader since de Valera planned to announce his departure from office two hours later.
The Taoiseach conducted the meeting in the routine way, kicking off with a discussion of the Lisbon Treaty campaign and moving on to other major political issues. Finally, at the very end of the meeting, he told his stunned colleagues of his plan to name the date of his departure from office in a month's time.
By that stage some of the Ministers were getting text messages from advisers wondering what the hell was going on, as word had filtered out that the media had received an urgent summons to the steps of the Taoiseach's department for a dramatic announcement about 10am. After leaving the Fianna Fáil Ministers Bertie Ahern had short meetings with Green Party leader, John Gormley, and the PD leader, Mary Harney, to tell them of his decision.
The element of surprise has always been a feature of Ahern's political style, as he demonstrated by springing the announcement of the election on the country very early on a Sunday morning last May.
The timing and manner of his departure caught everybody on the hop but there was general agreement that he picked the appropriate moment to go. As he said himself in a dignified speech the "constant barrage of commentary on tribunal-related matters" had come to dominate the political agenda and would have done so for however long he stayed.
Ahern has had a hugely successful political career and among his most outstanding achievements were winning three elections in a row, making three coalition governments work harmoniously, presiding over the Celtic Tiger economy and, most important of all, helping to bring the peace process to a successful conclusion.
His crowning achievement was undoubtedly the role he played in bringing the Belfast Agreement into being. It probably could not have been done without his crafty political skills, founded on patience and compromise. Equally important, his persistence in sticking with the process as it hit one hitch after another was vital in eventually bringing about a stable devolved government in Northern Ireland.
On the political front, winning three elections in a row was a phenomenal achievement. The victory last May, in the teeth of the raging controversy over his personal finances, was stunning and it demonstrated that his personal popularity was strong enough to withstand the range of questions raised by the Mahon tribunal about his finances.
His skill in making coalition work underpinned his years in power. His predecessor, Albert Reynolds, had his term of office foreshortened because of rows with his coalition partners, first the PDs and then with the Labour Party. Ahern learned the lesson well and went out of his way to conciliate his coalition partners and even the Independents who supported him.
Social partnership was another key plank of Ahern's political approach. In fact the skills he developed as Minister for Labour in bringing the social partners together in the years after 1987 stood him in good stead in coalition building.
His first government from 1997 to 2002 was Ahern's most successful. Coming into office as the Celtic Tiger era was getting under way, the Fianna Fáil-PD minority government cut taxes and introduced some economic reforms that accelerated the boom and saw a dramatic rise in living standards.
However, the second period in office from 2002 to 2007 was much less innovative and the downside of the partnership model, as manifested in the benchmarking deal for the public service, created a drag on the economy. The reliance on the housing boom to generate growth and taxes paid off in the short term but the long-term consequences are now beginning to be felt.
As well as being a conciliator in terms of coalition parties in government and between the social partners, Ahern brought his skills to bear on his own party. Fianna Fáil had been riven by internal dissent from 1966 until Ahern took over at the end of 1994. Immediately on succeeding Reynolds, Ahern pledged to end factionalism within Fianna Fail and he was as good as his word.
While he came from the Haughey wing of Fianna Fáil he appointed close associates of Reynolds like Charlie McCreevy and Brian Cowen to senior front-bench posts alongside leading members of the Haughey faction like Micheál Martin and Dermot Ahern.
The axe was buried and Fianna Fáil has been a notably unified party for the past 13 years, so whoever succeeds him will not have to deal with any legacy of internal bitterness.
Ahern's decision to anoint Cowen as his successor after last year's election was a reflection of just how little the old factions that had developed in the Haughey era had ceased to be a factor in internal party politics. One striking feature of Ahern's political operation, since he was first elected to the Dáil in 1977, has been his strong and well-financed local power base in Dublin Central. As far back as the late 1980s an annual fund-raising dinner in the Royal Hospital in Kilmainham was organised by his supporters to generate funds for the constituency. Later a house, St Luke's, was purchased by the local party and Ahern has used it as a political base ever since.
However, the strong and well-funded local operation, on which his constituency power was based and which helped him become of the biggest vote-getters in the country, also proved to be his Achilles heel. The unorthodox personal financial arrangements uncovered by the Mahon tribunal had their roots in the manner the constituency organisation was run.
The unfortunate aspect of this from Ahern and Fianna Fáil's point of view is that it raises the spectre of the Haughey era once more. After the disclosures about the large payments made to Haughey began to emerge at the McCracken tribunal in 1997, Ahern made a commitment at his party's ardfheis that he would not stand over such wrongdoing.
"Certainly there would be no place in our party today for that kind of behaviour, no matter how eminent the person involved or the extent of their prior services to the country . . . We could not condone the practice of senior politicians seeking or receiving from a single donor large sums of money."
Ahern's tragedy is that, notwithstanding his own services to the country, the spectre of his personal finances has prompted him to call it a day a little sooner than he had planned.
Stephen Collins is Political Editor of The Irish Times