Sinn Féin hoped to get Gerry Adams elected president of Ireland in succession to Mary McAleese. But the party's poor May election showing has scuppered the ambitious plan, writes Ed Moloney
When the votes were counted after last May's general election in the Republic, it soon became clear that the poll was more than just a disappointment for Sinn Féin. With the loss of one Dublin seat and the near loss of another, Sinn Féin had come nowhere near the electoral breakthrough that party leaders hoped would make it a contender for a place in a Fianna Fáil-led coalition government.
Instead of the 12 or even 15 seats that some in the party had privately predicted could be won, Sinn Féin ended up with four TDs, not even enough to qualify for full speaking rights at Taoiseach's question time in the Dáil, never mind a junior coalition partner. As if to rub salt in republican wounds, Fianna Fáil has announced that it would organise branches in the North, which will create direct competition with Sinn Féin on its home patch.
However, what was not known at the time of the election was that the result was actually much worse for the party. The poor performance dealt a body blow to an ambitious and highly secret plan to get Gerry Adams elected as president of Ireland in the 2011 presidential poll. To add to Sinn Féin's woes, the timing of future elections may mean that Adams's chance of the top political post has been lost forever.
Robbed of both a chance to get into government in Dublin and to see its leader ensconced in Áras an Uachtaráin, Sinn Féin is now more directionless than at any point since the peace process began.
The party's leader, Gerry Adams, is now seen by other politicians in the North as a much reduced figure and in the South has been widely faulted for his poor media performances during the election.
Two parts of Sinn Féin's election strategy were well known and never a secret. One was to overtake the SDLP to become the largest nationalist party in the North. Another was to become large enough in the South to qualify for partnership in government with Fianna Fáil. If both strategies had been successful then Sinn Féin could have been in office on both sides of the Border at the same time.
Most observers believed that if this state of affairs came about the high point in the Sinn Féin strategy would have been reached. Certainly a successful conclusion like this would mean that Adams, who is widely acknowledged to have been the real moving force behind the birth and development of the peace process, would have a secure place in the republican pantheon.
But according to well-placed sources this would not have been the end of Sinn Féin's strategy. The third part was to seek Gerry Adams's elevation to the presidency - and while it was kept secret outside Sinn Féin's inner councils it was apparently known to both the Irish and British governments during their tortuous dealings with Sinn Féin leading to the new Stormont government.
The goal of running Adams for president was entirely dependent upon success in elections to the Dáil, and that is why May's poor result has scuppered the plan. Had the result gone better for Sinn Féin then the party would have been in a position to exercise a clause in Bunreacht na hÉireann to allow them to nominate Adams for the presidency. Article 12 (4) of the Constitution says that if a person is nominated by 20 members of the Oireachtas then he or she is eligible to stand.
Had Sinn Féin won 12 or so seats last May then with one or two Senators elected as well they would have been within shouting distance of the required 20 nominators.
There would have been ample scope for Sinn Féin to secure the extra votes needed through deals with the smaller parties and/or with Independents. Nor, thanks to a lucrative IRA investment portfolio, would Sinn Féin have had any difficulty finding the financial resources to fight the campaign. But Sinn Féin's Dáil tally of just four TDs in May, along with the perception that the party may have peaked in the South, killed off the idea.
Another reason to believe the strategy has been fatally wounded lies in the timing of elections. The next Dáil election, assuming Taoiseach Bertie Ahern again serves a full term, may not happen until 2012 while the next presidential election is scheduled for November 2011, thus very possibly putting the target of 20 Oireachtas supporters entirely beyond reach.
The existence of this secret strategy explains one or two aspects of the way Gerry Adams has conducted himself in recent years. It helps to explain, for instance, why, unlike other Sinn Féin figures, Adams has made persistent denials of any association with the IRA.
Any admission of such activity could become a liability during the election campaign. Many of his trips overseas, some in statesman-mode, now make more sense as does his courtship of Nelson Mandela of South Africa.
Had May's election produced a happier result for Sinn Féin and Adams was encouraged to run, he would not have to face one obstacle that in the past could have been a burden. The election of Mary McAleese in 1997 means that Southern voters have got used to the idea of a Northerner in the Phoenix Park. Intriguingly the idea for McAleese's nomination came from Fr Alex Reid, the Redemptorist priest who worked with Adams in developing the peace process.
Since the election, both Adams and Sinn Féin have appeared directionless. Much criticised for his poorly prepared performances in television and radio debates with other party leaders, Adams has won few fans in the Stormont Assembly.
"Adams is a much diminished figure," observed one DUP MLA. "He makes few appearances in the Assembly, he's not on any committees, he's not to the fore at all." Instead his junior colleague Martin McGuinness, as Deputy First Minister, is more in the limelight.
DUP sources, who are now predicting an early announcement that the IRA will be turned into an old comrades' association of some sort, say that ironically the May election result in the South has helped stabilise the Assembly: "Sinn Féin has nothing left now except Stormont so they would be foolish to threaten it in any way."
The more Sinn Féin behaves itself in the new dispensation, say DUP sources, the less support there will be for their own dissidents.
• Paisley - From Demagogue to Democrat? by Ed Moloneywill be published by Poolbeg Press in the new year