People often say that politics is a boring subject, but the events of the last few days have been anything but boring. Were the situation not so serious, it would be the plot of a Hollywood comedy which would probably be panned by the critics for being too far-fetched and unrealistic.
The big news today, of course, is that Brian Cowen has stepped down as leader of the Fianna Fáil party but will stay on as Taoiseach until the general election. Little time had elapsed for the news to sink in before the attention turned to the next leader. Micheál Martin and Brian Lenihan have already put their names forward for the leadership contest which will take place on Wednesday while, at the time of writing, Éamon Ó Cuiv is also expected to enter the contest by declaring live on TG4. Mary Hanafin is another front-runner, but hadn't declared at the time of writing, while Conor Lenihan had declared an interest in partaking before nominations close on Monday. Tánaiste Mary Coughlan announced on RTÉ's Six-One news this evening that she would not be in the running.
Within the party, candidates will look to gain the support of a plurality of the seventy-one Fianna Fáil TDs in what will be the first contested leadership election since Charles Haughey resigned as leader in 1992. By 5pm, three hours after the Taoiseach announced his resignation, former Foreign Affairs minister Martin already had thirteen colleagues backing him, and is the bookmakers' favourite to become the eighth leader of the largest Dáil party.
As numerous opposition TDs and large volumes of text messages read on RTÉ Radio observed, the general public don't really care who's in charge of the larger government party, and that Mr. Cowen should add his resignation as Taoiseach to his resignation as Fianna Fáil leader and call a general election to be held before the previously announced date of March 11. A frequent question asked on RTÉ Radio 1's "Saturday View" was that if Mr. Cowen was no longer good enough to be leader of Fianna Fáil, why is he good enough to remain on as Taoiseach? Opposition parliamentarians point out that the Fianna Fáil TDs' attention have focused on the needs of the party, rather than the needs of the country. Whether that is true or not, it is fair to say that the ongoing drama has done little to improve Ireland's standing in the eyes of financial markets and her neighbours.
Whoever wins the party leadership contest on Wednesday will immediately have to defend their party in the Dáil, as a Labour Party motion of no confidence in the government is discussed on Tuesday evening, with a vote being held on Wednesday. And that's if the Dáil stays in session until then, as a Fine Gael motion of no confidence in Mr. Cowen will take place on Tuesday. Fianna Fáil and the Green Party may well unite against the Labour motion on Wednesday, but there may not be such a united front in a motion against the Taoiseach.
The drama won't subside any time soon, not least because the Green Party has notably kept silent on the whole affair today, and will remain so until after the party meets tomorrow morning. They refused to allow Mr. Cowen nominate new ministers to replace the five who resigned on Wednesday night and Thursday morning; will they pull their support for Mr. Cowen now that he isn't even his party's leader? Anyone who has booked a flight to return to Ireland to vote on March 11 might be looking for a flight a few weeks earlier yet.
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