Election will shuffle deck – but it won’t produce a clear winner

World of Politics with Harry McGee – harrymcgee@gmail.com

If you listen very closely, you can hear distant drums. The warriors have been roused from sleep and have begun ululating and have started the war dance around the bonfire. Because all the political parties are now thinking election. That said, we will not see an election in 2017; we might not even see one in 2018, but chances are that it might happen towards the latter end.

But for all that, what is certain is that, even before they return after the summer break, all parties will be in election mode.

We can see it in their own planning. Every September before the Oireachtas returns, most political parties hold special parliamentary party meetings, or “think-ins” as they have come to be called.

The location is key. Sometimes they are held in symbolic places – the home county of the leader, or a particularly favoured Minister.

When you move into that part of the calendar that says “impending election” they always plump for a constituency where they have ambitions to win a seat.

And so if you look at the locations chosen by Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Labour, all are constituencies where they hope to make gains.

Fine Gael is going to Clonmel in Co Tipperary. The party has zero seats there now and dearly wants to win one back. It will hold a declaration convention to coincide with the meeting – where prospective candidates will come forward.

Fianna Fáil is going to Longford. The party holds one seat in Longford-Westmeath. There is an anomaly there though. All four seats in the constituency are held by Westmeath TDs.

Fianna Fáil will target a Longford seat to provide a second seat for the party there. That will really depend on Willie Penrose’s intentions.

If he doesn’t stand, Labour will find it nigh impossible to hold that seat. The other three TDs – Boxer Moran, Peter Burke and Robert Troy – all look safe to me.

Labour is holding its meeting in Kildare. In Kildare South, the very popular Jack Wall was its flag-bearer for many years. His son Mark will try to regain a seat for the party. His cause will be helped by the fact that constituency of Kildare South has been increased to a four-seater, even though one of those will be the automatically re-elected Ceann Comhairle Seán Ó Fearghaíl.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.