It stated 'Most voters don’t want either Adams or Ahern for the Áras.'
Slightly more people would opt for the former taoiseach over the former Sinn Féin leader in a two-way run off for the presidential election in 2025, but 59 per cent would vote for neither, the latest Business Post/RedC poll reveals.
It would be quite the contest, acerbic thrusts and acidic return serves, sparks aplenty. Not mainly because the unbridled ambition of both contenders will have each kick and gouge the other for advantage, but more due to the type of questioning each is likely to face in the run in. One will be dogged by questions about economic crime, the other quizzed about war crime.
The speculation about their mutual interest in adding the Aras to their list of properties has been fuelled most recently by the reappearance on the political scene of Bertie Ahern whose membership application was accepted by Fianna Fail. This is something that was not processed as 'somebody here looking to join'. Considerable strategic thought was invested in that one before Party HQ gave the green light.
While it might at first appear mindboggling as to why Fianna Fail, dogged by scandal pertaining to financial impropriety, would court the embers being raked over once again as a result of what might seem an injudicious move. Cui bono? Fianna Fail might.
Adams has been persistent in trying to have the vote in presidential elections extended to the Diaspora. Fianna Fail calculations are likely to be that enough Irish Americans could either be eye-wiped by Adams or simply don’t care enough about his past not to vote in huge numbers for him. In that scenario there is only one man to pitch against him – the former Taoiseach who acquired a reputation in the US as a result of how he helped usher in the Good Friday Agreement. Adams has already taken a hit in the US as a result of Patrick Radden Keefe's book Say Nothing. The issues raised in that prize winning work are likely to pipe into the mood music of any campaign amongst the diaspora, and Fianna Fail are certain to pump up the volume.
For Irish society it will be a bumpy ride. Both men who would aspire to be President will have to lie about their pasts. Their mendaciousness will be played out in an international arena to the background of flashing bulbs and media scrums from which all sorts of embarrassing questions will be asked and uncomfortable accusations made.
By the time the next election comes around it will be fourteen years since a woman held the office of President. One compelling reason to think it time for another. Someone of the integrity of Bernadette McAliskey - because she has no interest in the pomp and ceremony of high office, because she never has been a career politician - would make an ideal president. Nobody is going to ask her about secret graves or secret accounts. And unlike the covetous Adams or Ahern, she would present perfectly as the Irish presidential equivalent of Uruguay's frugal Pepe Mujica. The voting public can decide if it wants radical dissenting women or cynical dissembling men. Faced with a candidate of the probity of McAliskey would the crowd shout give us the Barabbas Brothers?
If it is to be a two-hyena race between the former leader of Fianna Fail, and the former leader of Sinn Fein, Irish society, whether assailed by the stink of corruption or the stench of decomposition, will have as its man in the Aras, President Pong.
Welcome back Bertie might be seen as cute hoor maneuvering by the Soldiers of Destiny. The party's strategic intelligence suspects that the former Sinn Fein and IRA leader Gerry Adams is considering furthering his career ambitions by seeking the keys of the one place left open to him in his mid seventies, Aras An Uachtarain. Fianna Fail must also be reasonably confident that Adams would not get across the line on the strength of a vote in Ireland alone. Even if the North were to be allowed to participate the unionists would come out just to vote against him, cancelling out any top-up he might have expected from a northern nationalist electorate.
Adams has been persistent in trying to have the vote in presidential elections extended to the Diaspora. Fianna Fail calculations are likely to be that enough Irish Americans could either be eye-wiped by Adams or simply don’t care enough about his past not to vote in huge numbers for him. In that scenario there is only one man to pitch against him – the former Taoiseach who acquired a reputation in the US as a result of how he helped usher in the Good Friday Agreement. Adams has already taken a hit in the US as a result of Patrick Radden Keefe's book Say Nothing. The issues raised in that prize winning work are likely to pipe into the mood music of any campaign amongst the diaspora, and Fianna Fail are certain to pump up the volume.
For Irish society it will be a bumpy ride. Both men who would aspire to be President will have to lie about their pasts. Their mendaciousness will be played out in an international arena to the background of flashing bulbs and media scrums from which all sorts of embarrassing questions will be asked and uncomfortable accusations made.
This society deserves better than a vanity contest between two huge egos eager to erase or rewrite their past, reinventing themselves in the process for their own good, not ours. Irish society needs a President who will promote it, not one who will use society to promote himself.
By the time the next election comes around it will be fourteen years since a woman held the office of President. One compelling reason to think it time for another. Someone of the integrity of Bernadette McAliskey - because she has no interest in the pomp and ceremony of high office, because she never has been a career politician - would make an ideal president. Nobody is going to ask her about secret graves or secret accounts. And unlike the covetous Adams or Ahern, she would present perfectly as the Irish presidential equivalent of Uruguay's frugal Pepe Mujica. The voting public can decide if it wants radical dissenting women or cynical dissembling men. Faced with a candidate of the probity of McAliskey would the crowd shout give us the Barabbas Brothers?
If it is to be a two-hyena race between the former leader of Fianna Fail, and the former leader of Sinn Fein, Irish society, whether assailed by the stink of corruption or the stench of decomposition, will have as its man in the Aras, President Pong.
⏩ Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.
