And so, it’s time to choose. The debates are done, the differences aired, the entrails probed. The fingers have pointed and pundits have pontificated. It’s time for the only poll that really matters. The choice may be between rum and rummer but it has to be made. Here comes Judgement Day.

For the first time in a long time, maybe generations, there’s one big issue: the economy. And it’s micro rather than macro. The bigger picture is understood and expressed in millions of personal situations and experiences. But it’s there all the time.
The focus of debate around the canteen tables and office water-coolers is on the personal cost (to those still working) of the financial collapse and the bank bailout, a melange including lower pay and higher taxes, the new and hated Universal Social Charge, negative equity, unemployment and emigration.
Meanwhile, once-touted coalition partners Fine Gael and Labour have been chewing lumps off each other.
Both parties have been going for broke, thereby both provoking each other – and infuriating a significant number of pundits and commentators, people who feared that Fianna Fáil would rise yet again and demanded that Fine Gael and Labour pre-agree a concerted alternative.
Well, it now looks pretty certain that Fianna Fáil will walk the plank, which unfolds a whole new landscape, an absolute once-in-a-lifetimeopportunity to change. So, the parties were right to try the big play.
The undecideds seem to be crystallising their swing. The tide is with Fine Gael. So too, with few exceptions, are the meeja and big money. And farmers.
The only real question is how well they’ll fare. Yes, there’ll be surprises and of course it ain’t over till the fat lady sings. But we might reasonably contemplate two scenarios.
The first of these is that Fine Gael wins enough seats to form a Government with the help of some like-minded independents and micro-parties. You might even have Fianna Fáil supporting them while rebuilding. (Wooooooooh… scary movie!!)
Labour would be the second biggest party and Éamon Gilmore the leader of the Opposition. You’d have a fairly clear-cut right/left divide in Irish politics for the first time ever.
It’s an interesting prospect. The left would be seen as a cogent alternative to the right-wing consensus, one that might achieve power at some point in the future. That’s a big step up from where we have been for a long time and where some would like us to stay.
But of course, in the short term it would signify the electors endorsing the centre-right consensus on the key provisions of the bailout and the four-year austerity programme, notwithstanding that most people don’t in fact agree with the terms and conditions. Those on the Opposition benches would be those who have to a greater or lesser extent questioned the orthodoxy. (Mind you, the left being the left, they’d probably attack each other more than the Government…)
In the second scenario, Fine Gael fall short and look to Labour to form a coalition. The present wisdom is that they are far apart on key issues. Which they are. But they’ve coalesced before, and successfully too.
It’s Hobson’s choice for Labour. Historically, in Ireland the smaller parties have lost popularity and representation after coalitions. An FG/Lab coalition would have a huge majority. It would be well able to push through its programme. But it would also ooze frustrated ambitions and tantrums.
That would mean dirty days ahead and no end of chances for the Opposition to make hay. Both parties would be sitting ducks for the Opposition which, if Labour is in Government, will be led by either Fianna Fáil or Sinn Féin…
Jaysus wept!
Many in Labour would be miffed at missing out on office yet again. But the right thing to do may well be to opt to head the Opposition, no matter what the numbers. Doing otherwise would cede leadership of the dissident left to the Shinners.
After all, you have to also think of the following election which will be held, at the latest, months before the 100th anniversary of the 1916 Rising…
Now there’s a thought!
Well, the picture will become clearer on Saturday. Before I sign off, four last points:
* First, the old nonsense that so many of us got away with before – ‘they’re all the same’ – doesn’t hold this time. You have to discharge your citizen’s democratic responsibility. You have a vote to cast. Use it wisely.
* Second, Government and opposition alike will shoulder huge responsibilities and contend with problems not actually of their making. Turbulence and unpopularity loom. We must wish them well.
* Third, in 2011, while there are still clowns to the left of us and jokers to the right, few of those going for election are doing so for an easy ride. That includes party candidates. Others have taken up the challenge to get off the fence. Whether you agree with them or not, they deserve our respect for offering us choice.
* Finally, remember that money is already flowing to where its owners reckon it will best be served. That’s the way things work. In 1997 the Irish Independent, tired of the then-Rainbow Coalition, ran with a headline ‘It’s Payback Time’. The result? The balance tipped enough to give us Bertie and Charlie McCreevy et al and the rest is history… the history we are now paying for. So the only unbiased observer you can trust is you.
Don’t mind what they be tellin’ you. Trust yourself and do what’s right.