What next for the PD’s?
THEY’VE been here before. Even prior to the formal launch of the Progressive Democrats in December 1985, there were doubts about the party’s viability. On October 31 that year, as formation talks continued in accountant Paul Mackay’s Dublin 6 house, the man supposed to lead the new party, Des O’Malley, got cold feet. In his book on the history of the PDs, political journalist Stephen Collins tells how Mr O’Malley “wanted to call the whole thing off”, and how Mr Mackay later described the evening in his diary as a “Last Supper atmosphere”.
In 1998, the party suffered a humiliating result in a by election in the Cork South Central constituency, when its candidate Peter Kelly took just 2% of the vote and was eliminated on the first count. Despite being in government at the time, the party was described as being in need of intensive care by its former star, Pat Cox.
“I used to say the party was down but not out, but after this result, it is dangerously close to being down and out,” Mr Cox bluntly declared.
The PDs overcame the various trials and tribulations. That was, at least, until this year’s general election, when the wheels well and truly came off the wagon. The party took just 2.7% of the first-preference vote and saw its number of TDs fall from eight to two. Among the casualties were party leader Michael McDowell, deputy leader Liz O’Donnell and president Tom Parlon, all of whom promptly announced their departure from politics.
Suddenly, there were questions once more about the party’s viability. All summer long, political commentators have posited that the PDs are finished. Coincidentally, the house in which the party was formed has just been put up for sale by Mr Mackay and his wife. The more superstitious party members would be forgiven for wondering if there’s an omen in that.
Omens aside, there are two versions of the party’s future. The first is that there is none. The party’s vote has declined consistently since it took 11.85% in the first general election it contested in 1987, culminating in the near-wipe-out experienced this May.
As the sole senior figure left standing, Mary Harney was forced to return to the leadership, a role she did not want and does not intend keeping. Once Ms Harney steps down, there will be nobody in the party with the stature or ability to keep it alive.
One observer close to the PDs, who prefers to remain anonymous so as to speak more candidly, says that in the remnants of the party, “There is no [next] Des O’Malley. There is no [next] Mary Harney. Game, set and match. All over.”
The second version is considerably more upbeat and the one that’s being pushed officially by the party. The PDs will elect a bright, energetic leadership team, which will in turn reinvigorate the party in time for the local and European elections in 2009. Success there will give the party a platform for the next general election, due in 2012.
But this sunny version of events hinges on the local and European elections being a success. If they are not, even the optimists in the party concede it’s difficult to see a future for the PDs.
“I think that will be the critical test for the party,” says senator Fiona O’Malley of 2009. “If we have a poor result in that election, I think then we’d have to face the writing on the wall, if you like.”
The party’s other Senator, Ciaran Cannon, agrees. Of the possibility of a poor result, he says: “It may not happen, but if it does happen, it’s something we’ll just have to sit down and take a look at and acknowledge that maybe what we set out to achieve 21 years ago has effectively been achieved and that our relevancy within the Irish electoral system is no longer an issue for people.”
The one good thing, says Colm O’Gorman, the high-profile candidate who failed to win a seat for the party in Wexford, is that the predicted migration of PD councillors to other parties has not happened. To date, Dublin-based Wendy Hederman is the only councillor to resign from the PDs, but that was because she wasretiring from politics, not joining another party.
“That’s a good indication, I think, of a desire to stay involved and stay committed,” says Mr O’Gorman. “But we have to build on that. I mean, 20 county councillors are not a political movement — 20 councillors and four members of the Oireachtas. But it’s certainly a very good base to be working from.”
For the record, the party has 19 county councillors following Ms Hederman’s departure and 10 town councillors, according to the PD website. Its four Oireachtas members are Ms Harney and her fellow TD, Noel Grealish, and senators O’Malley and Cannon.
It was also predicted that Mr Grealish and Mr Cannon, who are friends, would both abandon the PDs for Fianna Fáil. On that subject, Mr Cannon says: “There has been that speculation, there has been speculation that the party as a whole would merge back in with Fianna Fáil, but I don’t see that as an option at the moment, and I’m sure if you talk to Noel, he doesn’t either…
“I think everyone is intent on running as far as the local elections in 2009 and putting every ounce of energy we have into it, because I do think what we have achieved is worth salvaging and worth rebuilding on.”
So how does the party go about the rebuilding?
Two committees have been established to consider different aspects of the party’s future and are due to report at the end of this month.
The first committee has been tasked with devising strategy for the local and European elections. The committee will report to the party’s national executive committee, which will have the option of accepting or rejecting its recommendations. While members stress they don’t wish to pre-empt the strategy committee’s report, a number of ideas are already being floated within the party.
One is that the PDs will have to focus on a limited number of constituencies in the local elections. In the last such elections in 2004, Michael McDowell was party president and asked headquarters to line up 200 candidates. “I succeeded in getting 130-plus of what I know were top-class candidates, 100 of whom I would have said were very relevant to their communities,” recalls general secretary John Higgins.
“But the mistake we made was they were stretched from Letterkenny to Killarney and right throughout the country, with the result that [it was] too much of a scatter-gun approach.
“I don’t want to pre-empt the work of the committee, but my own feeling is that what we need to do is… focus on a number of the key constituencies where people have voted Progressive Democrat in the past and try to get a cluster of seats in a constituency, as distinct from winning a seat here or winning a seat there.”
On top of that, he says, it is absolutely essential that the PDs run in the European elections. That didn’t happen in 2004, when the party decided Liz O’Donnell would be its ideal candidate only for Ms O’Donnell to say she was not interested.
It cost the party much-needed publicity, says Mr Higgins, and affected the local election performance.
Mr O’Gorman similarly says the party must contest the Europeans".
By the time the elections come round, those candidates might be running under a different party name.
“Effectively the name is too long for a start,” says Mr Cannon. “It’s just a mouthful.”
Mr Higgins agrees, saying: “I hate this word ‘PD’… it means nothing.” A small change might be practical, he says. Both men mention “The Progressive Party” as one possibility.
“But that name change cannot happen without side by side having a new policy direction for the party as a whole,” says Mr Cannon."
Mr O’Gorman, however, points out that a lot of members may well oppose a name change. Either way, the PD brand needs work. Many of the party’s founding principles and existing policies have failed to register with the public, Mr O’Gorman says, buried beneath the simplistic view of the PDs as an unsympathetic, right-wing party.
“I’ve said it and I’ve said it since I joined the party: This party is great at intellectualising an argument and engaging people’s minds; it doesn’t engage people’s hearts,” he says.
So the party needs to work on its brand, policy and communication and find new candidates. It also needs to find a new leader. The second committee established this summer was to look at the party’s rules, particularly the one that states that the PD leader must be a member of the Dail. That is almost certainly going to be changed, as Ms Harney does not wish to remain as leader and the party’s other TD Mr Grealish has indicated no desire to succeed her. Loosening the rules to allow a senator to lead the party would allow Ms O’Malley to take on the job. She has made clear her interest in the position, and is the frontrunner as a result — though it is the glaring lack of alternative candidates that make her favourite, rather than her own credentials. The party’s other senator Mr Cannon says he has no interest. In any case, he is completely new to the Oireachtas, and would likely have little support.
The only other possible candidates would require more fundamental change to the leadership rules: namely that any party member could become leader, regardless of whether they held a Dail or Seanad seat. Mr O’Gorman and Tom Morrissey, both former senators who were overlooked by the party when it considered its Seanad nominations this summer, are the two candidates most spoken of. Mr Morrissey did not return calls last week, but he is not popular among the party hierarchy, having questioned the constitutionality of the process whereby Ms Harney was restored as leader earlier this year.
Mr O’Gorman, for his part, says it is not the time to discuss the leadership issue. “I don’t believe at this point right now this should be about individual candidates declaring that they’re candidates or want to be candidates or whatever,” he says.
“If we now begin to focus on individual personalities, I think it deflects from the real questions the party has to be answering internally. But also it deflects from the kind of conversation and discussion I know the membership are eager to have.”
Given the distinct lack of personalities remaining in the party, the PDs may not have any other choice on that front.
