Email It’s going to be the straightest shoot-out between the Civil War parties since the close of the last century. Leo Varadkar and Micheál Martin enter the 2020 General Election with an equally credible chance of becoming Taoiseach in the 33rd Dáil. The stakes are high as Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil seek to be in power as the country commemorates the centenary of the foundation of the State.
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Following the November by-elections and Dara Murphy’s resignation, Fine Gael has 47 TDs to Fianna Fáil’s 45 TDs.
Keep in mind also that previous Ceann Comhairle Seán Barrett’s automatically elected seat in Dún Laoghaire is a write-off for Fine Gael. Sitting Ceann Comhairle Seán Ó Fearghaíl’s seat in Kildare South is automatically filled, giving Fianna Fáil a strategic advantage.
There’s no real gap. The latest range of opinion polls puts support for the parties in the range of the mid-to-high 20 percentage points each. Fine Gael is ahead in most, but there’s not much between them at all. Varadkar has been Taoiseach for two-and-a-half years and a member of Cabinet for nine. Martin was a minister for 14 years and Opposition leader for nine. You’d have to go back to when the Fianna Fáil leader first entered Cabinet to find an election when the prospects of both sides were so finely balanced heading into the campaign.
Martin’s nervous supporters in the visitors’ gallery of the Dáil Chamber let out a shriek of excitement and relief when his name was called out as newly elected Taoiseach Bertie Ahern announced his Cabinet after the 1997 General Election.
Fine Gael regards 1997 as the one that got away.
Here’s where matters differ from previous generations. In the last century, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael would regularly dominate anything up to 80-85pc of the poll. The high point was 1938 when Eamon de Valera’s Fianna Fáil and WT Cosgrave’s Fine Gael gobbled up more than 85pc of all the votes cast. Again in 1982, the two titanic general election battles between Charlie Haughey’s Fianna Fáil and Garret FitzGerald’s Fine Gael saw the parties divide more than 84pc of the votes. But their stranglehold loosened a tad in the latter part of the century. In 1997, on a good day for both parties, Ahern’s Fianna Fáil and John Bruton’s Fine Gael shared just over 67pc of the votes. This century has seen politics redefined as a resurgence in the old rivalry under Ahern and Enda Kenny in 2007 has been wiped away by the economic crash and subsequent fallout from austerity. At the last general election, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael between them got less than 50pc of the votes. Over half the country voted for somebody other than the Civil War parties for the first time in the history of the State. The trend won’t be repeated this time as the fortunes of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have recovered somewhat. The centre ground has held. It has grown a bit — but not a lot. The polls suggest about one in 20 voters have shifted back to the Civil War parties. Both parties would be considered to be having a good day if their combined vote share was between the 55-60pc mark in the forthcoming General Election. Considering they are often competing for the same voters, going above the 60pc mark is a bridge too far.
However, the focus on the two leaders in line to become Taoiseach will draw attention and support to Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil over the course of the campaign.
The focus on the date of the election will become irrelevant as soon as the starting whistle is blown.
The second day of the campaign is what matters as the leaders will have to set out their policies. With general agreement on economic growth and the range of expenditure, Varadkar and Martin’s personal battle will be the deciding factor.
The winner will define the decade of the 2020s.
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