Pat Rabbitte's supporters were last night confident of winning a crucial vote at Labour's national executive today to put a proposal to next month's party conference to endorse a pre-election pact with Fine Gael.
Mr Rabbitte, the party leader, will propose to the 28-member body in Dublin today that it ask the national conference in Tralee to endorse his proposal for a pre-election deal. This would involve both an agreement by the parties involved to call on their supporters to give transfers to each other, and a statement of agreed policy principles to be implemented if the parties form a government.
The motion proposes such a deal with other "democratic parties of opposition" - meaning Fine Gael and the Green Party - if Fine Gael agrees to such a pact.
Recent opinion polls have shown these parties considerably short of the support needed to be able to win enough seats to form a coalition. However, Mr Rabbitte will argue today that if a pre-election pact is agreed and voters can see the prospect of an alternative, support for the opposition parties would grow substantially.
However, national executive member Henry Haughton will propose a counter-motion to rule out a pre-election deal with any other party or individuals. While supporters of Mr Haughton's position said last night that today's vote would be close, supporters of Mr Rabbitte said they expected a clear majority for his position.
There is a significant minority within Labour that is unhappy with Mr Rabbitte's preferred electoral strategy, the most prominent of these being former deputy leader Brendan Howlin.
If Mr Rabbitte wins today's vote, the Labour Party conference from May 27th to 29th would decide whether to endorse this electoral strategy. The motion proposing a pre-election deal would have the added weight of coming from the party's national executive, but is certain to face a counter-motion from those who believe Labour should fight the next election without any pre-election pact.
Mr Rabbitte's supporters said last night that they were confident of winning a good majority for their position at party conference, but this was disputed by those who oppose a pre-election deal. The party leadership hopes that if it wins today's vote and subsequently gains endorsement at the full party conference, internal dispute over strategy will end and the party can concentrate on preparing for the general election campaign expected in 2007.
Next month's conference will also discuss a motion from the Bray East branch to rule out any post-election discussions with Fianna Fáil, the Progressive Democrats or Sinn Féin, even if an agreed pre-election alliance fails to win enough seats to form a government. Sources on different sides of the debate said yesterday they believed this motion would be defeated.
However, Mr Rabbitte has ruled out the possibility that he personally would lead the party into such negotiations.