Sinn Féin may be looking to the next general election

THE common assumption is that Martin McGuinness’s IRA past will scuttle his chances of the presidency.

It has even been suggested in some political quarters that Sinn Féin has fallen victim to arrogance in putting up a candidate with such clear links to the bloody past rather than a fresh face with no such baggage.

And sure enough, if Martin McGuinness’s campaign fails to lift off or collapses, it will all seem very obvious in hindsight that his IRA past was too big an obstacle to overcome.

However, there is another way of looking at this: Sinn Féin is playing the long game and looking to the next general election rather than the presidency.

It’s Government Buildings rather than the Áras they want.

If that is the case, Martin McGuinness is the perfect candidate. And the focus on his IRA past will be a classic demonstration of how to turn a perceived weakness into a strength.

Sinn Féin prospered in the last general election and, come the next one, should be in a position to grow further.

That election will be in 2016, if the Government runs its full term. By then, the Fine Gael-Labour Coalition will have implemented a succession of hairshirt budgets.

The Coalition’s hope is that the public will praise them for turning the economy around and return them to office. But even if that occurred, it seems a stretch to think the coalition parties would hold onto power with the same huge numbers they currently have.

It seems much more probable that Fine Gael or Labour, or both, will lose seats even if they do keep hold of Government Buildings.

Similarly, Fianna Fáil is in disarray and, if it pulls through its latest crisis, will still have a massive rebuilding job to do. So, for the next few years, Sinn Féin has an opportunity of building its voice at Fianna Fáil’s expense and becoming the real opposition.

All of the above means that, by 2016, Sinn Féin should be in a position to win more seats, and if they do that, be in a position to go into power themselves in a new coalition arrangement.

But, of course, were Sinn Féin looking likely contenders for power during the election, all the other parties would be pressed on whether they could do business with them.

The Sinn Féin-IRA past would again become a major issue, and a substantial majority could be persuaded to vote against the party to keep them out of power.

That is unless the public has already voted in larger-than-expected numbers for Sinn Féin in a previous election and realised they can live with it.

And here’s where Martin McGuinness’s presidential candidacy comes in.

He will be pestered with questions about his IRA past in this campaign. They will be never-ending. That past will supposedly be his weakness. And, true enough, it may prevent him from getting the kind of numbers that would actually win him the race.

But on the flip side, what if a sizeable portion of the public decides the unrelenting coverage of his IRA past is old news? Or if they believe he truly is a peacemaker now? Or if they think that an anti-government candidate would be the best choice for the Áras to somehow balance the enormous strength the Coalition has in the Dáil? Or if they want to send a message to the EU about the onerous terms of the bailout, or all of the above?

At that point, McGuinness may prove a very attractive candidate. He has always been seen as warmer than Gerry Adams, who is regarded as a cold fish.

McGuinness has also been seen as more honest, prepared to admit to his IRA past (if not all his actions), something Adams has never done.

He is a better candidate for this election than Adams, and has a far better chance of overcoming the issue of IRA baggage.

And if he does that — if he flushes the IRA poison from the Sinn Féin system — the party will regard it as a major victory, because it will be less of an issue in the future.

McGuinness doesn’t have to win. All he has to do is persuade people who never voted for Sinn Féin to consider doing so.

If he achieves that, he will have paved the way for those same voters to consider voting Sinn Féin at the next election — which is what his candidacy may be all about.