Kenny promises local branches greater autonomy

FINE GAEL leader Enda Kenny has expanded his strategy shake-up and guaranteed local organisations will not be subject to heavy-handed treatment by headquarters.

Along with the removal of Frank Flannery as director of elections, Mr Kenny told his parliamentary party that headquarters will no longer usurp local organisations by deciding which candidates are allowed to run for the party.

At the local elections the majority of Fine Gael candidates were chosen by conventions. However, an interview process was used in a small number of areas.

These included Dun Laoghaire and Donegal, and were considered a failure.

Mr Kenny will retain the right to introduce a leader’s candidate and issue directives for geographic reasons.

Fianna Fáil experienced a series of internal revolts after it decided to strip local organisations of their power to select candidates. It picked its entire team for the local elections by an interview panel.

A Fine Gael spokesman said Mr Kenny favoured conventions because they introduced competition and kept branches involved in party preparations.

Senior party politicians have said Fine Gael’s emphatic victory in the elections had solidified Mr Kenny’s position and any threat to his leadership has been removed.

It has also given him the scope to introduce more widespread reform ahead of the next general election.

On Wednesday, Mr Kenny revealed Mr Flannery would not continue as director of elections. The senior strategist’s suggestion that Fine Gael was prepared to go into coalition with Sinn Féin almost derailed the campaign just days before last week’s vote.

Yesterday, parliamentary party members said there had been annoyance at how Mr Flannery’s comments distracted the party in the final week of the campaign.

However, it was also said the changes in Mr Flannery’s role – to director of organisation – will be minimal as he will still be responsible for preparing the party for elections. The Fine Gael parliamentary party will meet for a full election postmortem next week.

Yesterday, a spokesman for the party said Mr Flannery had indicated he was “very happy” with his future role.

Fianna Fáil TD Micheal Kennedy said the cosmetic shifting of Mr Flannery’s roles was insincere. He said if the party was genuine it would have sacked Mr Flannery from all his posts and done so before the election.