Bertie: The Wicked Wizard of the Northside

Hailstones, thundershowers and ferocious winds assailed the capital city earlier this week. A bolt of lighting even struck a flowerpot on the Merrion Square side of Leinster House, setting it ablaze.

Politically, the weather has been equally squally. The PDs got a buffeting from their partners in Government on the second airport terminal and storm clouds hung over Labour as various factions in that party squabbled over electoral strategy ahead of a crucial vote on the issue at their annual conference in Tralee this weekend.

All the signs are that Pat Rabbitte's proposal for a pre-election pact with Fine Gael will prevail and that by the close of business on Saturday, a dazzling and spectacular rainbow will decorate the skies above the Mont Brandon Hotel. Any other outcome would be a major setback for the Labour leader.

Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz who wondered what could be "over the rainbow", Pat Rabbitte must hope that for Labour, it will be a place in Government and a chance to deny Bertie and Fianna Fáil the glory of winning power from a third general election.

On his way to that political pot of gold, Rabbitte may well meet a scarecrow who needs a brain, a Tin Man who wants a heart and a Cowardly Lion who desperately needs courage (you can draw your own political analogies) but the one he needs to watch most (from a Labour point of view) is the Wicked Witch of the West or rather in Dublin-speak, the Wicked Wizard of the Northside, Bertie Ahern.

The Taoiseach is one of the shrewdest political meteorologists around and he will be scouring the skies for the first signs of a rainbow. If he sees it this weekend above Tralee he will know that it's "Game on". Only a Rainbow coalition has the potential (however faint) of removing Fianna Fáil from office instead of just making it change dancing partners.

For the first time since 1997, Fianna Fáil will have competition and the public will have a choice of an alternative government. The battle-lines will be set. It will be the: "Anyone But Fianna Fáil" gang (Fine Gael, Labour and the Greens) against the others (Fianna Fáil and the political wallflower that no one wants to dance with, Sinn Féin). The PDs, rather promiscuously have indicated they would hop into either political bed should the numbers stack up. In such a tightly fought contest, the number of independent TDs could be crucial. One way or another it's going to be a far more interesting election campaign than 2002 when the outcome was known before a vote was ever cast.

Traditionally, when faced with the prospect of a Fine Gael/Labour alliance, Fianna Fáil employs a number of tactics. It usually attempts to sow division in the opposition ranks by emphasising its left-of-centre credentials to attract Labour supporters and by arguing that their party is selling them out to a right-wing party.

On this score the Taoiseach is ahead of the posse. Last November on the 10th anniversary of his leadership of Fianna Fáil, he declared he was "one of the few socialists left in Irish politics".

And only recently in The Sunday Independent, Bertie Ahern insisted that: "a lot of people in the Labour Party in particular look to us [FF] as their natural partners and we have a lot of support in the trade union movement".

Another classic Fianna Fáil tactic is to highlight policy inconsistencies between the "Rainbow" parties. But of course, Bertie's trump card will always be the economy and (despite the Government's recent differences) the perception that Fianna Fáil is the only party capable of delivering cohesive coalition government.