Rural support and careful selection of candidates may minimise party's losses, writes GARRET FITZGERALD
THIS WEEK I feel I should write about the impending elections. I believe that holding the local and European elections on the same day is a good idea because it increases turnout. The origin of this arrangement goes back to the Paris summit of 1974 which initiated the sequence of European Council meetings of heads of government, but which also addressed the issue of direct elections to the European Parliament, the members of which had until then been chosen by national parliaments.
The proposal before the summit was that the first direct election be held in 1980, but I suggested to Liam Cosgrave that he propose that this process be started earlier, so that the first European Parliament election would coincide with our 1979 local elections. He thought that was a good idea, and our proposal to hold the first such election in 1978 – so as to allow for inevitable slippage in timetable – produced the desired result.
What we failed to allow for, however, was Irish slippage. Despite my efforts to dissuade them, in 1984 the government that I led insisted on postponing the scheduled 1984 local elections until 1985, deluding themselves that our parties would do better in that year. But this delusion became so persistent among politicians that by 1999, successive postponements had brought the two elections back into line with each other. So next Friday we vote twice – and in two parts of Dublin, three times.
There are contrasting sets of poll data as to the outcome – TNS mrbi in The Irish Timesand Red C in the Sunday Business Post.
Since the 1970s, I have found TNS mrbi very reliable, mainly because their samples are constituency-based, but also because they have made an adjustment to the data to allow for a consistent tendency of those polled to overstate their intention to vote for Fianna Fáil.
However, in the present circumstances, this adjustment may be inappropriate because those polled may no longer be inclined to overstate their support for that party. If anything, the opposite may be the case.
Thus, the Red C poll may this time be a more accurate indicator of the electorate’s intentions – and its most recent poll showed Fine Gael’s support four points lower than did TNS mrbi, and Fianna Fáil’s support three points higher. Moreover, in terms of council seats, Fianna Fáil might not do as badly as some have suggested for, at least in rural areas, loyalty to local candidates may offset anger at the Government – especially as so many Fianna Fáil candidates have played down or even omitted any reference to their party.
Another factor tending to minimise Fianna Fáil losses could be their careful choice of the number of candidates in each area. In 2004, the party made a mess of candidate selection – failing to control the number of candidates, as well as their quality – both of which issues Fine Gael then managed more skilfully.
This time, Fianna Fáil has learned from Fine Gael’s handling of the 2004 local election and have made a much better job of the selection process: up to 40 per cent of their candidates are new faces, fresh to politics. To have attracted so many new candidates at a time when the party is unpopular was quite a feat.
There is, of course, a downside. The exclusion of older potential candidates seems to have led to a larger than usual number of disgruntled Fianna Fáil people, some of them ex-councillors, standing as Independents, with a chance of winning seats. And the polls show increased support for Independents.
Despite yesterday’s TNS mrbi poll, Fianna Fáil’s vote in the country and county borough elections may marginally exceed rather than fall short of 20 per cent and Fine Gael’s vote may be below rather than above 35 per cent – slightly less than double Fianna Fáil’s vote. And Labour may, or may not, secure more votes than Fianna Fáil.
Of course, I may be proved wrong next weekend. But one way or the other the main Government party will suffer a huge setback and Irish politics may in future take a very different shape.
It’s all still to play for, but one encouraging feature is the likelihood that the age level and general quality of members of our councils from different parties may improve significantly and it is possible that more councils will put the common good ahead of private interests.
As to the results of the European election: these are impossible to predict, for statistical reasons. At the individual constituency level, our proportional electoral system can often be remarkably disproportional, but because there are over 40 Dáil constituencies, the number of seats won by each party at national level is usually broadly proportional to the first-preference votes cast for the candidates of each party.
With only four Euro constituencies, the outcome is unpredictable. Despite this, the gain or loss of even a single seat by any party will be widely but wrongly seen as significant.
Finally, referring back to my article on Dáil reform of two weeks ago, I want to thank Adrian Kilbane for his correction of my contention that the Irish version of the Constitution might permit the introduction of my proposed electoral reform. Two-thirds of a century after leaving school I am afraid I forgot that “do réir” takes the genitive, and mistook this for a plural form. Gabh mo leithscéal! But I still think that my reform proposal would merit a referendum. Any takers, members of the Dáil?