The Bull and the Dolly to scrap it out in close affair

THE BULL is struggling and the Dolly won’t make it to the starting line. The mighty have not quite fallen yet but they are fighting for their political lives.

John O’Donoghue is at serious risk of losing his seat in Kerry South and with it, Fianna Fáil’s 85-year dominance in the constituency.

Michael “Dolly” Healy Rae could fail to inherit the dynastic Dáil seat graced by his father Jackie — the pothole fixer extraordinaire and once-mighty political force of The Kingdom.

According to today’s opinion poll, both men will lose votes and transfers to Tom Fleming — a former Fianna Fáil councillor who recently broke ranks from the party and is now running as an independent.

The second seat will go to Fine Gael’s Tom Sheahan, who gets the highest first preferences but will not be declared victorious until all the transfers are through on the final count.

His running mate, Brendan Griffin, and Labour’s Marie Moloney battle it out for the third seat which will come right down to the wire.

Kerry South was one of the most tightly contested constituency in the 2007 election. And the results of the Irish Examiner Red C poll show it will be even closer this time.

The top six candidates are within just three points of each other. The votes are so evenly split that it will be the fourth count before any of the candidates reach the quota required to be declared elected, and we will have to wait to the final count to know who fills the second and third seats.

Fianna Fáil has suffered a dramatic decline from 41% in the 2007 to just 15% and O’Donoghue faces the fight of his life to be re-elected.

The veteran TD not only suffered for the controversy over his extravagant expense claims, but in the last few weeks he has seen some of his closest Fianna Fáil supporters turn their back on him and throw their weight behind his former running mate, Fleming, who left the party just weeks before the campaign.

With 16% support, Fine Gael’s Tom Sheahan tops the poll by just one single point on the first count.

Behind him are three candidates neck and neck at 15% each: Brendan Griffin (FG), John O’Donoghue (FF) and Marie Moloney (Labour).

Another single point separates them from Mr Fleming at 14% while just one behind him is Michael Healy-Rae at 13%.

They are all battling it out for transfers in an earlier count to stay ahead in the race.

And this is where Fleming is likely to fight off the dominant names in the constituency: Healy Rae and O’Donoghue.

Although he comes fourth on the first count, Fleming hoovers up the majority of transfers — firstly from Independent Michael Gleeson who at 11% will have plenty of second preferences to share out

These transfers prove crucial because with Fleming getting twice as many as Healy Rae, he is put significantly ahead on the third count.

Without enough transfers, Healy Rae is eliminated on the next count. His transfers are decisive for O’Donoghue, but in a slap in the face for the former ceann comhairle, they are more likely to go to Fleming, putting him in the lead at this stage.

The most transfer-friendly by far, Fleming is the first declared elected on the fourth count.

But Fleming knows more than most about the perils of erratic transfer patterns in Kerry South.

As O’Donoghue’s running mate in the 2007 election, he outpolled both Jackie Healy-Rae and Fine Gael’s Tom Sheahan in first preferences, only to see them surge ahead in the last count with the help of transfers from his own running mate, O’Donoghue.

This time around, the two Fine Gael candidates will have to learn from this and make sure they transfer to each other if they want to take two seats.

The surge in support for Fine Gael in the rest of the country is not as strong in Kerry South, where it grows from 25% in the last election to 31% according to the Irish Examiner poll.

After 18 years without a seat here, Tom Sheahan made the breakthrough in 2007. But at 16%, neither he, nor his running mate Brendan Griffin at 15%, reaches the quota and both will have to wait until the elimination of O’Donoghue on the fifth count to be elected.

It is likely to come down to a battle between Griffin and Labour’s Marie Maloney who — even after the fourth count — are on the same number of votes, showing just how tight the race will be.

The majority of voters — almost 40% — in Kerry South, say they are going to vote independent but their preferences are shared out between four candidates who will cancel out each other’s votes.

This compares to the last election when just 15% favoured independents but all voted for Jackie Healy Rae.

Michael does not appear as transfer- friendly as his father but will take the opinion poll with a pinch of salt, remembering a similar one ahead of the 2007 election showing his father was certain to lose his seat.

In fact, Kerry South has a long history of defying the opinion polls. As a failed Fine Gael candidate once declared after his defeat: “There are a hell of a lot of liars in south Kerry.”

This touch of dishonesty can be added to the already confusing mix where 15% of voters are undecided, six candidates are almost neck and neck and transfers will decide the final outcome. The poll results are far from decisive and each candidate will know there is everything to fear and everything to fight for in the last week of campaigning.