There is little appetite in Sinn Féin for Mary Lou McDonald to run for president as party figures move closer to the idea of backing Catherine Connolly.
Sinn Féin’s Ard Chomhairle has not yet considered a report consulting the party’s membership on its views, and the party will not make a formal decision until September.
But a number of figures in the party neither believe nor support the idea that Ms McDonald would run. “I don’t want her in the Áras,” one said. “It would be a waste.”
“I don’t see a universe where she would run.”
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A number of sources within Sinn Féin said they would favour keeping Ms McDonald in the Dáil to lead the party’s ongoing bid to get into government. There is a view emerging that to have Ms McDonald run for president could be read as a concession that Sinn Féin was losing its ambition for the office of an taoiseach.
Ms McDonald prompted speculation on her possible candidacy for the upcoming presidential election when she declined to rule herself out of the race earlier this month.
It was a marked change in position for the leader of the Opposition, who had definitively said she would not be running for president in March.
It is understood Ms McDonald’s recent comments may have been a recognition of a desire for her to run among party supporters, who were recently consulted on their views.
Sinn Féin remains nervous about presidential elections following a bruising run for its then MEP Liadh Ní Riada in the 2018 contest. Ms Ní Riada came fourth with a little more than 6 per cent of first-preference votes.
Though Ms McDonald is recognised as a very strong candidate with a massive national profile, party figures are privately reluctant to put “our best vote getter” up for what can be a bruising and unpredictable contest.
There are anxieties within the party that anything less than an overwhelming win for Ms McDonald could feed a media narrative about a dip in Sinn Féin’s electoral fortunes.
Sinn Féin is generally relaxed about the question of its presidential candidacy and is content to wait until as late as September to make a decision.
If Sinn Féin does not run its own candidate, it is likely to support the campaign of Independent TD Ms Connolly.
Launching her campaign earlier this month, Ms Connolly said “I think we’re going to have united Ireland very soon” but it would not be “immediate”.
This was widely perceived within the party to have been for the benefit of Sinn Féin and an open effort on the part of Ms Connolly to court the party. Few Sinn Féin TDs could remember ever having heard Ms Connolly talk about reunification in her nearly ten years in the Dáil. The Independent TD did support a recent Sinn Féin motion which proposed extending voting rights to Northern Ireland.
