Free The Race for the Áras by Tom Reddy

before the November election. Co. Wexford would have been the first to vote on a nomination otherwise.
    So while candidates would canvass, and in some cases address, local authorities, the formal nomination could not be given, whatever verbal assurances and pledges were made, until September. Councils could only pledge support for a nomination, and a formal nomination could only be made once the minister signed the order for the election.
    The Fianna Fáil leader, Micheál Martin, said it was important that there be a ‘new way to do politics’ and confirmed that the parliamentary party would make a ‘definitive party position on the nomination’ the following month.
    Fine Gael had instructed its councillors throughout the country—in many cases they held the balance of power on local authorities—not to vote for the nomination of any independent candidate. Councillor Paddy Belton of Longford County Council spoke openly to the media about the ban imposed on him by Fine Gael head office. Norris had asked to address the council, and the council agreed; but before his arrival the Fine Gael group had contacted the party’s head office seeking advice.
    â€˜We got word from headquarters,’ according to Belton, a farmer from Kenagh, about five miles outside the county town. ‘The instruction we got was to oppose him if it was proposed for Longford local authority to support him.’ Belton said he told Norris of the instruction they had received after Norris had addressed the meeting. Norris asked if they would consider abstaining. ‘No,’ said Belton, ‘I said this was instructions from HQ .’
    In Lower Mount Street, Micheál Martin took a different approach from that of his opposite number in Upper Mount Street, saying he would allow a free vote for Fianna Fáil councillors on nominations for the Áras.
    It is the Fianna Fáil view that the people of this country are entitled to have as wide a choice for the office of President as possible and that this office should not be limited to the official nominations of the political parties. For this reason, I will not be taking the same approach as other parties as they seek to block the nomination of independent candidates and will permit party representatives to facilitate the candidacy of individuals who they believe should have the right to stand before the electorate.
    Fianna Fáil also distanced itself from the former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern. Reading between the lines, it was clear there was no nomination available for him. ‘I don’t think that’s something on the agenda at all,’ said Micheál Martin firmly.
    Fianna Fáil now had three options: to nominate its own party member as candidate; to offer support to an independent, such as Gallagher, who had already begun contacting Fianna Fáil members of the Oireachtas; or, radically, to set a precedent for the party by not running a candidate. Were the party to decide not to run a candidate it would be the first time since 1938 that it did not put forward a candidate, and in that instance Dr Douglas Hyde became the first President of Ireland in an uncontested election.
    â€˜Martin needs to make up his mind if Fianna Fáil is going to run a candidate,’ Ahern said subsequently, telling the Evening Herald that ‘if Fianna Fáil are going to nominate someone they’d want to do it soon, because it’s May now and time is running out.’ Reconciled to a lost cause, he said:
    I definitely won’t be putting my name on the list. I always said I’d have my mind made up by St Patrick’s Day but I actually decided before that, as far back as January.
    I don’t have the funds, for a start, to mount a campaign. You need a lot of money for these things. I don’t expect I would have the support either. When you look at Brian Lenihan’s campaign in 1990, he went in with a 44 per cent approval rating and still