Gavan Reilly: Hard to have a winner in FF’s messy Áras dilemma

Well, what a fine little mess Fianna Fail has stumbled itself into.

Micheál Martin didn’t tell anyone he was working on the recruitment of someone who is, objectively, a qualified and serious outside candidacy for the Presidency. Because he didn’t tell anyone, people speculated in a void. Would Bertie Ahern run? Mary Hanafin? Éamon Ó Cuív? Would Micheál cut short his term as Taoiseach and go for it himself?

Micheál kept his counsel so much that Billy Kelleher decided, in lieu of any other candidates, he’d run himself. This was a surprise to Micheál, who was on the cusp of presenting Jim Gavin, hopefully (in his mind) as a fait accompli. This in turn was a surprise to Billy who might never have taken the plunge if he thought Martin had another horse in the race.

Parties are no strangers to internal conflict; if harnessed properly it’s how a lot of them don’t just survive but thrive. But if the word on the grapevine is to be believed, Micheál may not have it all his own way.

Here’s the rub: there are two competing instincts within the party. There are some pragmatists who know that a President needs to eventually gain 50 per cent of the vote to claim the Áras, and Fianna Fáil’s default starting position is around 20 per cent - requiring a candidate who attracts support beyond just the niche that the party can depend on. On the other hand are those who carry the flag, who dutifully show up to party conventions and Ardfheiseanna, who sell tickets to the superdraw, and who knock on doors to hand out flyers when it counts at election time. They’ll be expected to do all of that again in a few weeks - and aren’t sure about doing it for an outsider who might never even have voted for the party, let alone knocked on a door for it.

And in the middle is a common understanding: if it’s going to participate in this election, Fianna Fáil really wants to win it. The difficulty is a little like the primary system used to pick presidential candidates in the U.S. Having been dragged to the left or right to win the party’s support, candidates then have to pivot back to the middle ground to win the centre. If Jim Gavin is FF’s chosen one, it may be difficult to enthused and energise the party base behind an outsider who may have served his country but never the party. If Kelleher gets the gig, it may be hard to enthuse outsiders to his cause - his raw total of votes in Ireland South in last summer’s Euro elections still only amounted to 13 per cent. So, does FF recruit an outsider - which should immediately inflate the vote beyond FF’s 20 per cent share of the electorate - or reward a loyalist who might command a higher workrate from the party’s organs?

And, crucially: if the TDs pick an outsider, how will councillors feel about an instruction from HQ not to sanction any other independent candidates?