Some observations on the presidential campaign in the Irish Republic. Tomorrow there is to be a Presidential election in Ireland. There are five Presidential hopefuls: Mary McAleese, Mary Banotti, Dana, Adi Roche and Derek Nally. According to most o fthe opinion polls McAleese is tipped to win. She is a right wing Catholic academic with a very close relationship to the Catholic hierachy. Despite the office of presidency being mainly ceremonial race itself has had a decidedly political character. The contest has been primarily between the Fianna Fail and the Fine Gael candidates. It has been reduced to a contest between two forms of bourgeois nationalism. The nationalism that places greater rhetorical emphasis on the aspiration of achieving a 32 county Irish republic and the nationalism that supports the continuation of the thirty two county republic with improved relations between the 26 and the 6 county states. The former demonstrates a greater interest in the concerns of the Catholic population in the north. Essentially there obtains only a marginal difference between the two parties. The former laying greater emphasis on republican rhetoric and the latter less. Both are essentially happy with the status quo. Consequently the debate has been a false one. It has been a debate centred around rhetoric and posturing. Even at that the former party has presented this positon in a rather craven suppressed way. It lacks even the confidence to present its token republicanism in an explicit form. This is how little confidence it has in its own images. Indeed in many ways its politics on the surface are that of posturing, images, hints and innuendo. In this way FF presents itself as a multifaceted populist organisation: all things to all people. In this way republican minded voters are seduced into voting for it. Less republican minded voters, on the other hand, are seduced into voting for it because of their belief that it is only mildly and thereby sufficiently and harmlessly republican. FG, on the other hand, wants to present itself as the party of the high moral ground. The party that personifies moral disdain for anything tainted with Provo terrorism and intolerance towards the bigoted unionism. It seeks to present itself as the party that is most understanding and accommodating to unionism. The party with whom unionists can best do business. The party that can be nationalist and yet unionist at the same time. The party of the two sides. In this way they present themselves as the party that can best achieve political and institutional reconciliation of nationalism and unionism. FG wants to present itself as the good guy. The party of the high moral ground, the party free from corruption. Conversely they seek to present Fianna Fail as the amoral and corrupt party that is not concerned with the complexities of the national question and thereby demonstrates insensitivity to Unionism. However the point is that there is essentially no difference between the two political parties. They are both bourgeois partitionist parties. They are both free from the mytical moral ground. The differences being presented to us then are one's of perception rather than policy. Difference of image, rhetoric and style. In a sense both parties are Celtic myths: identity politics. Regarding the national question, economics, social issues and security there is no essential difference between them. Consequently to make themselves electable they must artificially manufacture surface differences. This is analogous to brand difference of commerce. Both parties, in terms of their immediate interests, are merely concerned with securing political power as a means of gaining a greater share of the booty. Capitalism is essentially indifferent as to which of the parties take power. Their primary function for capital is that of sustaining capitalism by deception: creating the illusion of choice. In addition competition between the two parties keeps them, in some ways, on their toes. It makes it harder for them while in power to grow so corrupt and authoritarian that the masses loose confidence in them. It also means that if any one of the parties makes a mess of things there is in existence a government in exile waiting to step into its place. This then serves to protect the system and guarantee capital's continued existence. The individual parties have to justify their existence by manufacturing false differences, surface difference that is not real difference at all. In the presidential election Fine Gael led by John Bruton devised a presidential strategy designed to put Mary Banotti in the Park. The strategy was to "taint" Fianna Fail's presidential candidate by mispresenting her as crypto terrorist. Bruton's remarks on Adam's support for McAleesse formed part of this ground plan. The leaks that followed formed further links in the plan together with Banotti's xenophobic remarks about McAleese which she latter retracted because of their conter-productive nature. They hoped that the alliance that existed between FG and elements within the media etc would assist in the implementation or development of this strategy. It, in short, entailed a grandiose smear campaign against MacAleese. The intention was by means of this strategy to manipulate the electorate in the interests of its own proviincialism. Dovetailing with this the plan entailed the exposure of McAleese as fraudulent in her images as a Robinson clone (Mary Robinson was the former President of Ireland) by exposing social conservatism (which includes her very close relationship to the Catholic hierarchy) which she sought to conceal. It was McAleese's attempt to play down her nationalism and social conservatism that made further encouraged Bruton to launch this particualr Fine Gael strategy. Fianna Fail's strategy of presenting its presidential candidate as a figure of the centre made her more vulnerable to this strategy. It was Bruton's purpose to discredit her as a figure of the centre by establishing the perception of her as friend and supporter of Gerry Adams. By means of this strategy Bruton and his allies hoped to polarise the political situation whereby the anti-McAleese voter would rally in behind the Banotti Presidential candidate abandoning the Nelly and Rote candidates. It may have succeeded in doing this in some measure. However it was not successful enough to overcome the hardening of FF support around the FF candidate. It, in a sense, succeeded in polarising the political situation over the presidential campaign. However it was McAleese that benefited mainly form the strategy. Bruton and his allies turned out to be McAleese's best ally. As it turned out the entire exercise backfired. If anything the smear campaign by both Bruton and his allies in the media supported, in effect, by Democratic Left and the Labour Party failed miserably and may have even increased her popularity. Through Owen Harris, Bruton's unoffical spin doctor and the former's ally. John Caden (both ex Workers' Party "apparatchiks") who was to serve as Derek Nally's handler it was hoped that Nally as independent presidential candidate he would be used to fill out the strategy. However when Nally discovered how he was bieng manipulated as an anti-McAleese candidate he ditched Caden et al. The significance of the anti-McAleese strategy was the massive way in which McAleese's relationship to nationalist politics and ideology was over-exaggerated and whipped up into virtual hysteria. There existed a broad front that extended right across the spectrum into the print and broadcasting media. What this event acutely exposed was the less than innocent role of the media in influencing politics and public opinion. The so called print media's "objective" commentators revealed their narrow political character in the significant role played by them in creating an hostile environment for McAleese. However the electorate bought little, if any, of this. This is a evidnence of the mass media's failure in manipulating the minds and emotions of the electorate. However had it proved successful it wold have been a great coup for Fine Gael. Yet, as I have already said, the divisions generated over the presidential campaign is a phoney campaign since there is little essential difference between the two candidates of the two leading political parties. And even if there are differences they will count for hardly anything within the extreme political constraints imposed by the virtually sinecure office of the Presidency. Ultimately the politics infusing the presidential race are a development of the political struggle between FG and FF. FG have as their strategy the ousting of the Ahern government as a means by which they can return to power either in or out of coalition. They hope to achieve this by means of the strategy of discrediting the Ahern government. By discrediting the government they hope to increase tension between the coalition partners while also encouraging tension within both parties. In this way they hope to split open the current government and at the same time weaken the coalition partners. In that way they struggle to create the political conditions that will eventually make possible a Fine Gael government. Consequently the political old political mould will be have been broken and a new political landscape created whereby FG hope to achieve their kind of modern Ireland. Rebecca