FF/FG/Green Government - Part 3

The problem for FF and FG is that their duopoly on power is under threat. They want to put off the reunification of Ireland for as long as possible. FF is at 15% in the latest opinion poll and FG is at 20%/ SF is at 36%. It is a RedC poll and its methodology is different to other pollsters in that it uses a pre-qualified panel of about 40K people that it thinks represents the electorate. Other pollsters use random samples of the electorate. The B&A polls seem to be better at estimating the support for FF as they use face to face polling rather than online/phone polling. Older FF voters are more likely to respond in face to face polling. The current polling %s for FF/FG/Greens are dire but I think that the Greens are falling back to their core support levels. On these %s, FG is going to lose more seats in the next GE.

Cowen is a bit smarter than people think. He and a few others were on a kind of virtual rubber chicken circuit during the Covid lockdowns. He and a few others were meeting other FFers to build support for the removal of Martin and his replacement possibly with Jim O'Callaghan. Cowen also lost his frontbench position as did Calleary. It was like Martin sacrificed FFers to appease Varadkar and FG. FF's performance in the Dublin Bay South bye-election, O'Callaghan's constituency, dampened some of those leadership moves as FF only managed to get 5% of the FPVs there. Varadkar and FG really screwed up that election and essentially gave away what should have been a safe FG seat.

FF and FG have to merge to survive but the problem is that their candidates are now dependent on transfers from each other rather than from floating votes. The political model shifted from being a 2.5 party model with Labour being the half-party to a Big Three model around 2013. The problem with the Big Three model is that no two parties have enough seats on their own for a majority. The floating vote that used to oscillate between FF and Labour disappeared and the incompetence of Labour's Stickies leadership in chasing ministerial pensions caused Labour to go into government in 2011 when it should have remained out. In the 2016 GE, the Labour's support collapsed and it went from 37 seats in the 2011 GE to just 7 in 2016. The transfers on which Labour candidates depended disappeared as FG and FF struggled to keep those transfers within their own sets of candidates.

The 2020 GE was a shock to FF/FG and Labour. The Dublin media also had problems in understanding what was happening and couldn't properly analyse the polling data. The Black and Tans/RIC commemoration by Charlie Flanagan caused massive problems for FG. The useless Martin compounded the problem for FF in that he wanted to commemorate the Black and Tans/RIC too. That, and Martin's confidence and supply (or more accurately, collaboration and surrender) agreement with FG and FF's history on housing, caused FF to lose an election where it should have been expecting to get between 50 and 60 seats.

FG would also have done a lot better had it not given into the neo-Unionist element represented by Charlie Flanagan. It had been polling around 30% before Christmas 2019 and the Black and Tans/RIC commemoration effectively controlled much of the media coverage before the GE. FG's woes were, and still are, amplified by the sheer incompetence of Varadkar. Varadkar has been a disaster for FG and he unnecessarily lost FG seats. With a competent FG leader, FG could have done a lot better. But Varadkar was the FG Politburo choice of candidate. The FG grassroots had voted for Coveney but Varadkar was installed as leader due to the FG parliamentary party's votes having more weight than those of the FG grassroots. Varadkar has led FG from one disaster to another (the LEs, the 2020 GE, leaking a document to his friend, losing a safe seat in FG heartland) and FG needs to remove him.

If FF and FG had both had competent leaders then SF would not have done as well in 2020 and would certainly not be the most popular party in the polls. Cowen is bright enough to realise the absolute toxicity of Martin's leadership and grovelling to FG. What will be interesting to see is which potential replacement for Martin will be proposed. O'Callaghan's seat is possibly safe but the prospect of an FF leader losing his seat in the next GE will be a factor. Michael McGrath may also be a possibility. Before Christmas it seemed that Pascal Donohoe was launching his own leadership challenge with an interview in the Indo where he said that he had worked well with McGrath. The memory of how Martin effectively stabbed Brian Cowen in the back to get the leadership is still there and Martin does seem to be increasingly isolated in FF. He may be lucky to make it to December.

Regards...jmcc