Enda ready for battle

Enda ready for battle

MICHAEL DUFFY
michaelduffy@mayonews.ie

I HAD the pleasure of interviewing Enda Kenny last week and, sitting across the table from him, you get the feeling that he just can’t wait for the big day. There’s an anticipation in his voice that was missing in the early years of his party leadership. The last five years have been a hard slog but he feels the damage done by the disastrous election in 2002 has now been repaired. He is now confident to go back to the people and let them have their say. As he is keen to emphasise of late, ‘leaders lead, but the people govern’.
Recent opinion polls have shown that the mercury is rising at the right time for Fine Gael. Twelve months ago, the current Government were too far ahead for the Fine Gael/Labour coalition to pose them any danger but it’s different now.
The last national opinion poll showed Fianna Fáil/PDs at a combined 39 per cent, with Fine Gael/Labour at 35 per cent. Throw the eight per cent Greens into the mix and you can see why Enda Kenny is confident.
The possibility of that happening is Fine Gael’s trump card in the Mayo constituency and they intend playing it over and over again in the run up to D-Day. They want the electorate to believe that this is an opportunity not to missed. They want us to believe that passing up the opportunity of having the Taoiseach living among us would be like knowing the six lotto numbers but not bothering to buy a ticket for the draw.
Enda Kenny is honest enough to admit that if he is to be Taoiseach, then he and Michael Ring will almost certainly have to bring home either Michelle Mulherin or John O’Mahony here in Mayo. The party have to make gains all over the country to get back into power and it will be deemed a failure if the party leader and party’s top votegetter cannot provide a gain.
It’s a tall order, no question. Mulherin looks to be trailing Dara Calleary, and perhaps Jerry Cowley, in the ‘Battle for Ballina’ while O’Mahony also looks to have his hands full in the east with John Carty and Gerry Murray. But, as Enda says, if enough of his and Michael Ring’s transfers are ‘shoved’ around then the third seat has to be a possibility.
Leadership certainly hasn’t aged Kenny. If anything he looks five years younger rather than older if comparisons are made to his election posters in 2002. This probably has something to do with the fact that Fine Gael are a more united force heading into this election. Back in 2002, Kenny admits there were ‘internal tensions’, the race was over before it even begun.
But this time Fianna Fáil know they have a battle on their hands to retain power. After ten years of failing to provide a real alternative, the opposition have finally got their act together and got the public thinking. Enda Kenny has to take credit for the way he has rejuvenated his party’s fortunes but now is the time when his leadership faces it sternest examination.
The majority of the public are only now starting to engage in the 2007 race for Dáil Éireann. The famous ‘floating voters’ are there to be swayed.