If Enda Kenny keeps himself on course, his future depends on his partners

This election campaign will be no coronation for Enda Kenny, writes Gerard Howlin.

That was Micheál Martin’s promise to the Taoiseach at the Fianna Fáil Árd Fheis last Saturday. It’s a good line and a good point. But this election is still Kenny’s to lose. There may be no open goal but the ball is at his feet. This is the moment of ultimate pressure in Enda Kenny’s long career. Barring a cock-up, or a series of them of his own making, he has a better than even chance of returning as Taoiseach, in some arrangement or another. A campaign that succeeds in crystallising his narrative of chaos versus stability could propel him and Labour over the line with a narrow majority. For now, that’s a best case scenario. More likely, others will be required for a future Kenny-led government.

Few understand the extraordinary pressure on an incumbent Taoiseach leading his party into an election campaign. You are the bull’s eye — everyone aims for you. To unseat a Taoiseach in the ring is the ultimate prize for any journalist in a press conference, or interview. It is the avowed aim of his opponents in every debate. Everything is at stake. Returning to office in 2016 cements Fine Gael’s acquired role as the natural party of government. It would seal Kenny’s position as the most successful leader of his party ever. The problem is voters do not think in these terms. It is their own future, not Enda Kenny’s place in history which preoccupies them.