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Kenny needs an extra push
22 November 2009
Fine Gael began 2009 with a five point lead over Fianna Fáil. It ends the year with a 13-point lead. That is the most note worthy message from the latest set of monthly numbers compiled by polling firm Red C for The Sunday Business Post.
Indeed, it is the most significant message from the entire series of tracking polls since last January.
However, to that mathematical fact should be added the political probability that has emerged in the past two months: the government’s chances of surviving - and, therefore, avoiding the general election that would be certain to crystallise the Fine Gael lead - look an awful lot better now than they did even a few months ago.
For much of this year, it looked as if the government could fall at any time, and would certainly face huge difficulty passing a budget in December.
But the successes of the Lisbon Treaty referendum, the renewed Programme for Government and the establishment of the National Asset Management Agency (Nama) mean that the government has settled, and can at least begin to look to the medium term.
The consistency and size of Fine Gael’s lead over its historical rivals is borne out again by today’s data, which sees support for the party increase marginally to 36 per cent.
Combined with party leader Enda Kenny’s record of electoral advances, it continues to provide the loudest single answer to the sceptics - inside and outside Fine Gael - about Kenny’s ability to connect with the Irish people as a strong leader.
It’s one of the many paradoxes of Irish politics that both schools of thought are true: many voters are unconvinced by Kenny, and he is set to be Fine Gael’s most successful electoral leader ever. What allows these two facts to co-exist is the unpopularity of Fianna Fáil, which doesn’t seem likely to change for the foreseeable future.
But there’s little evidence that Kenny is closing the deal with voters in the same way that Conservative Party leader David Cameron appears to be doing with British voters. A poll in the Guardian newspaper last week suggested that Cameron had cemented a reputation as tough and decisive - and ready, in the minds of the electorate, to serve as prime minister.
Expect Fine Gael to contrive all sorts of initiatives (promising to abolish the Seanad was one) to portray Kenny in such a light in the months ahead. In truth, it may not matter that much in terms of beating Fianna Fáil , whose unpopularity seems so deeply ingrained in voters’ psyches that it will not be expunged until at least one - and possibly more - disastrous election result has been inflicted on the party.
But the Kenny factor may matter in terms of the size of the Fine Gael mandate, as against that of the Labour Party. The two parties are united in their desire to eject Fianna Fáil from power and, barring an earthquake, they will form the next government in coalition. What sort of a coalition, and what their relative strengths will be, is not yet clear.
But it’s worth repeating: the most important thing for Fine Gael is the lead over Fianna Fáil. The party’s fate is in its own hands. Leading a long race can be difficult, but it’s a damn sight better than running a long race when you’re miles behind your rivals.
How bad are things for Fianna Fáil? The party’s dominance of Irish politics appears to be almost certainly over, although this historic movement does not appear to have dawned on many members at all levels.
Dublin must be a particular worry for Fianna Fáil party chiefs. Consistently in third place, unpopular among workingclass voters and deserted by public servants, there is hardly a constituency in the greater Dublin area where a Fianna Fáil seat is not in grave peril.
On the other hand, though this poll sees support fall marginally to 23 per cent, the party’s ultraloyal, bedrock support appears to be roughly around a quarter of all voters.
This, one might say, is not a bad starting point for any party. However, there is little indication of how the party can grow beyond it.
Fianna Fáil ministers and TDs cling to the belief that it is only by taking tough budgetary decisions now - and thereby laying the ground for economic recovery - that any political recovery for them is possible. It maybe true, but this is strategy built largely on hope.
There is little evidence - either in today’s poll numbers or in the cacophony of protests against an as-yet unknown budget - that a programme of fiscal austerity will do anything other than make the government even more unpopular, at least in the short-term.
For the other party of government, however, the poll brings some respite. The Green Party’s support has recovered by two points since last month, and is now at 5 per cent. In Dublin, where five of the party’s six TDs hold their seats, it is at 8 per cent.
It is advisable, however, not to over-interpret small movements in support for small parties. The political challenge for the Greens remains three pronged:
to guard against expending all its energy on governing, and so neglect the party organisation; to isolate and project policy achievements that will impress members and environmentally inclined voters; and to reduce the transfer toxicity of the association with Fianna Fáil.
None of these would be an easy task at the best of times. In a government under such financial pressure, they are formidable obstacles indeed.
The Labour Party sees its support fall slightly by two points to 17 per cent today, although the party’s medium trend of the high teens remains well-established. Labour kicked off the year at 14 per cent, so today’s figure represents progress - albeit steady, rather than spectacular - given that it reached 22 per cent in the first quarter of the year.
Other surveys show leader Eamon Gilmore, who is consistently ahead of his rivals, to be a significant asset.
But it is not yet clear what use the party is making of this advantage. Like the other parties, Labour will have to adjust to the prospect of greater longevity for the current government.
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