February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
Fianna Fail, thought to be in particular trouble at local level, could lose up to 100 of the 380 seats it currently holds, while Fine Gael may cede control of more than 50 of its council seats. Polls carried out by the Sunday Business Post and the Irish Times at the weekend confirmed that the smaller parties, including Sinn Fein and Labor, will make inroads into the two biggest parties’ share of the vote.
Some commentators have suggested that a Fianna Fail meltdown could have serious implications for Taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s leadership of the party.
Ahern has been linked to the job of EU Commissioner and has said that he views the role as an attractive one. If Ahern were to finally give way to his minister for foreign affairs, Brian Cowen, the man widely believed to be his natural successor, the European job would be one he would find hard to resist.
Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny could be in similarly dangerous waters. He was elected to replace Michael Noonan after devastating losses in the 2002 general election and a further erosion of support would call into question his stewardship of the party.
However any anger directed at Kenny from the Fine Gael grassroots may be offset by a good vote in the European elections — held on the same day. Polls have shown that Fine Gael’s support in Europe has increased in recent weeks and that it may even increase its share of European seats from four to five. The party believes it can claim two seats in the East constituency, where incumbent MEP Avril Doyle’s runningmate is high-profile journalist Mairead McGuinness. Its Dublin candidate, Gay Mitchell, has been tipped in some quarters as a strong contender for the position of poll-topper. In the South, Simon Coveney is polling well and in the Northwest Jim Higgins is expected to be elected easily.
As with the local elections, however, Fianna Fail is also down at a European level. Internal battles have been the story of Fianna Fail’s election campaign so far. In Dublin, Royston Brady and Eoin Ryan are at loggerheads. While Ryan’s election literature recommends to voters that they transfer to Brady, Brady’s poster campaign does not reciprocate. Brady is doing better in the polls, though the gap between the two candidates has been closing. There is only one Fianna Fail seat in the constituency according to analysts.
The Northwest constituency has also seen problems between Fianna Fail candidates. Jim McDaid and Sean