Election scandal - Ahern faces toughest Teflon test

AN election campaign without a whiff of scandal is unimaginable and, true to form, controversy has broken over the head of Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, leader of the country’s biggest political party.

If anything, the unfolding row demonstrates that a presidential-style campaign, based on Bertie’s undoubted popularity, could have a greater bearing on the party’s electoral prospects than a lorry-load of policy documents.

Unsurprisingly, the controversy over allegations that he carried a case full of cash to Manchester 13 years ago, something he categorically denies, overshadowed yesterday’s launch of Fianna Fáil’s major economic policy programme.