A party and a leader happy in opposition ... for now

Gerry Adams says he is not “mesmerised” by getting into power, but that his party does “of course” want to be in Government in the South.

And while he would “consider” any offer from Fianna Fáil to form a coalition after the next election, his “personal position” is that the party should not do so.

So has Sinn Féin decided what it wants yet? “We do have a definite position,” Mr Adams insisted to reporters at his party’s conference in Mayo at the weekend. But he wasn’t giving much away on what that position is.

Behind this “yes, no, maybe so” approach is a party that would love the chance to take the historic step of entering government in 2016, but still hasn’t made the transition that is necessary to do so.

There is still no sense of what a government with Sinn Féin in it would actually look like, how socialist its policies would be, or whether any other parties would be willing to look beyond its past, and do business with it.

During the ard fheis in Castlebar, it was very clear what the party was against: Cuts, austerity, the property tax, water charges, the closure of Garda stations, repaying the bondholders; the list goes on.

But it was far less obvious what the party is for. Apart from vague notions of “fairness” and “equality”, and “putting manners on the elites and the fat cats”, there were few answers offered to the country’s problems or few indications of how it would govern.

The party has over-relied on its proposal for a wealth tax, which it claims would raise €800m a year, as the solution to everything.

The only significant specific policy proposal was that it would abolish the property tax.

The main policy focus of the weekend was on rural Ireland with the launch of its document, Mapping the Pathway to Recovery.

It says Sinn Féin would invest €2.5bn in next-generation broadband, build 50 new primary schools at a cost of €250m, and invest €1bn in the development of wind energy. How would all this be paid for? With another bout of wishful thinking, a quick-fix tax of up to 80% on gas and oil profits.

Instead of offering policies or reasonable solutions on how it would run the country under the current economic conditions, Sinn Féin is focusing its energy on identifying the hardship and unfairness of the current austerity measures.

So far Sinn Féin is failing to benefit as much as it would hope from its constant opposition to austerity. It had predicted to double its vote in Meath East but came in with 13% of the vote, just three points higher than in the 2011 general election. While it had been out-performing Fianna Fáil in polls last year, it has since dropped from around 20% at the start of this year to 14% as Fianna Fáil makes a steady recovery.

Sinn Féin’s popularity is increasing incrementally, it is building its local organisations around the country and can expect a seat gain in the next election. All the signs are that this will be coupled with a dramatic reduction in seats for Labour, a Fine Gael that will lose some seats, and a far bigger Fianna Fáil, making Sinn Féin likely contenders in forming a future coalition.

This, of course, would leave other parties with a difficult decision to make on whether they could do business with Sinn Féin. The IRA past could become a focus and people might be persuaded to vote against the party to keep it out of power.

Of equal importance will be its policies and whether it remains committed to left-wing, socialist ideals, which would require more taxes on earnings to abolish the property tax, maintain welfare payments, and pump money into an economic stimulus.

Mr Adams is already playing hard to get. He says that “we don’t want to be in government for the sake of being in government” and that it would only do so “to advance the historic project which we set ourselves”.

Sinn Féin has shown many examples of pragmatism in the past and would likely do so again if it meant that great prize of power in 2016. It would only do so by moving some bit closer to the middle ground in order to be more acceptable to potential coalition partners.

Between now and then, Sinn Féin has the chance to present itself to the electorate as a credible party of government.

Currently, it would appear that for Mr Adams and his team of TDs, the comfort of opposition is far more mesmerising than the constraints of coalition.