Cowen & Co aim to minimise casualties

A TOTAL of 1,627 seats in 114 local authorities will be up for grabs in the local elections.

Of that figure, 744 seats are on town and borough councils which, while undoubtedly important to their communities, won’t be the priority for the political parties.

The priority will be the 883 seats on city and county councils – the real source of local power.

In theory, voters in local elections should be focused on which councillors can best represent their community.

However, because they tend to be held in the middle of a Government term, voters often use the local elections as an opportunity to express their verdict on how the national administration is doing.

The last local elections in 2004 were a case in point. Bertie Ahern had triumphantly led Fianna Fáil back into power in the 2002 general election. But by 2004, the Government was suffering from a fall in popularity. The economy had suffered a slowdown, necessitating cutbacks, and the electorate felt conned, as a rash of Fianna Fáil promises prior to the general election failed to materialise.

The result was that people expressed their anger in the local elections. Fianna Fáil had a nightmare, losing 80 of its city and county council seats. It was left with 302, only barely managing to see off Fine Gael, which increased its tally by 16 seats to 293 and came within a whisker of becoming the biggest party at local authority level.

Fianna Fáil’s government partner, the Progressive Democrats, also felt the wrath of the electorate, losing six seats, leaving it with 19.

Labour performed strongly, gaining an extra 18 seats to increase its tally to 101. The Greens also had a good day out, winning 10 new seats to increase its total to 18.

However, the real story of the 2004 local elections was the success of Sinn Féin, which more than doubled its city and county council presence by winning 33 seats to increase its tally to 54.

Conventional logic in the wake of the elections said Fianna Fáil could not fare as badly again. However, conventional logic did not see the global economic downturn, the collapse in the banking sector, and Ireland’s rapid transformation from boom to bust in recent times.

Fianna Fáil enters these elections at an historic low in the opinion polls.

As a result, the party fears the worst: being overtaken by Fine Gael at local authority level.

However, the greater problem for Fianna Fáil is that a particularly bad set of local election results would further erode confidence in Taoiseach Brian Cowen’s leadership and could cause instability within the party and, by extension, the Government.

The Government’s term doesn’t end until 2012, but few in Leinster House believe it will last that long.

Fine Gael and Labour go into the elections in buoyant form. Both are performing strongly in the polls and have every reason to feel confident.

A decent performance in the local elections will give them a significant boost ahead of the general election which both parties feel is imminent. Sinn Féin was supposed to use the spectacular 2004 results as the platform for a successful general election in 2007. But for a myriad of reasons, the party never kicked on, and actually ended up losing one of its five Dáil seats in 2007 rather than winning the three to five extra seats it thought possible.

There will be a lot of interest in the party’s performance in these local elections, which should tell whether 2007 was a blip or whether Sinn Féin is actually flat-lining in the South.

Nevertheless, for the most part, the focus will be on Fianna Fáil and, to a lesser extent, their Government partners, the Greens.

Fianna Fáil will hope a smart candidate selection strategy – in which headquarters has dictated the ticket rather than the local branches, allowing the party to weed out sentiment and avoid running candidates who are no-hopers – will minimise losses on the day.

As for the Greens, they will hope to avoid the fate of the PDs in 2004.

Usually, politics is about winning extra seats. But this is one of those times when standing still would actually represent a good day for both Government parties.