The other parties would kill for all this free publicity!
AND the winner is... Fine Gael! Ever since Enda Kenny, finally, declared that he was going, there has been great speculation as to which of the two leadership contenders, Leo Vardkar and Simon Coveney, would be victorious. The fact of the matter is, no matter which one of them won, in the end, it was their political party which benefited hugely from the leadership contest.
It turned out to be manna from heaven for the party’s officers. For the last two weeks, their leadership contest had been at the top of every news programme. The convoluted election process, whereby the parliamentary party, the councillors, and the general membership separately had a say, helped enormously to keep all eyes on Fine Gael.
Even the controversy over the parliamentary party members jumping the gun over the councillors and the party members ensured that the Fine Gael media ‘white-out’ continued. The ‘hustings’, which were no more than normal party meetings, grabbed the headlines for days in a row. Virtually no other political business got a mention.
The party hierarchy stated that the overall contest cost was somewhere in the region of €250,000. To me, this seems an extraordinarily large amount for what was, in effect, merely an internal political party contest. If the party officers had spent this type of money on the normal advertising campaign, they would not have got as much wall-to-wall publicity as they did during the leadership battle.
It’s no wonder that Fine Gael has received a huge boost in the polls. Time and time again, we heard Fine Gael members, over the airwaves, fawning over the respective candidates. The average detached voter could not have been anything other than impressed, listening to contributor after contributor saying how marvellously wonderful Varadkar and Coveney are.
SOME media outlets tried to dig down into the proposed policies of the respective candidates, but by and large this was avalanched by the virtual coronation of the two contestants. Even some seasoned commentators fell for this eulogising of the two by constantly referring to them by their Christian names.
I’d hazard a guess that the party officers over in Fianna Fáil were seething with jealousy at how their rivals were hogging the limelight. I’ve no doubt that they and most other political parties, apart from maybe Sinn Féin, will ensure that, for any future leadership contest within their organisations, they will have a similarly elongated, high-profile process.
Now that Varadkar has won the head-to-head, it seems likely that he will replace Kenny as Taoiseach, unless some unforeseen event happens. We can expect a few mutterings from the Independent backers of the minority Government. But I suspect that that’s all it would be: mutterings. They will do the usual wrestling with their conscience, but will finally back Varadkar and his new team.
Fianna Fáil has surprised me by not in some way extracting some concessions, or even re-commitments, on policy issues. I don’t think that this supine attitude would have happened in Charlie Haughey’s time.
This ‘new politics’ can be taken a bit too far. Fianna Fáil is on the back foot. It has had to stand on the sidelines, while Fine Gael has dominated political headlines for weeks on end. It has dropped in the polls, with the consequent rise in Fine Gael’s standing.
Varadkar will be in the driving seat for the next few months, surfing on the goodwill of his coronation. While he has indicated that he would not break the confidence and supply agreement with Fianna Fáil, he wouldn’t be the political animal he is without seeing how beneficial the ‘bounce’ of his election could be for Fine Gael, if a snap general election was called in the near future.
I have no doubt there will be many within Fine Gael who will be strongly advocating that the party ‘cut and run’, especially after its very public love-in over the last few weeks. They know fine well that the gloss surrounding Varadkar’s elevation will dissipate as the months go by.
While it’s generally felt that Fianna Fáil would have preferred Coveney, it may be better for the party that Varadkar won.
Coveney, during the campaign, clearly set out his stall that Fine Gael should be a party ‘representing everybody’, whereas Varadkar felt that Fine Gael should concentrate on ‘those who get up early in the morning’.
Coveney’s rhetoric is much closer to the stance taken by Fianna Fáil in the last few years, whereby it has advocated for a ‘fairer society’. In other words, Varadkar might turn out to be an easier target for Fianna Fáil given his scoffing at Coveney’s attitude of ‘trying to be kind to everyone’. Fianna Fáil may be on fertile ground in criticising a Fine Gael which veers even further to the right, economically, under Varadkar.
Varadkar will have his work cut out over the next week or so in choosing his Cabinet and other ministries. He will have a fair few goodies to give out, but he will also have a fair few backers to reward.
POLITICAL history shows that reshuffles like this should be handled very cautiously. For instance, the late Albert Reynolds on becoming Taoiseach, sacked eight senior ministers and eight junior ministers, including yours truly, in what was famously called ‘the night of the long knives’. This rash decision came back to haunt him, in many ways, but especially when he subsequently put his name forward, before the parliamentary party, as a candidate for the presidency. Obviously, he was down 16 votes before he even started.
Varadkar might be better advised to keep his enemies close by appointing a few of those people who backed Coveney to his Cabinet. Observers will be keeping a very close eye on how he treats Simon Harris. Mind you, the more dissidents he appoints to ministerial positions, the fewer vacancies there will be for his supporters.
This in turn may lead to quite a few disaffected former supporters smouldering on the backbenches. Over the next few days we will hear a lot of guff about uniting the Fine Gael party. Do not pay too much attention to that. When Varadkar makes his choices, there will be a fair few bruised people, who have been overlooked.
One way or the other, the next few weeks will test the mettle of Leo Varadkar.