The man who would be King

From Ballinasloe to the Burlington, Charlie Haughey presides over the rituals of the tribe, By Gene Kerrigan.

The lights dimmed in the large room in the Burlington Hotel and nine waitresses and waiters entered in single file, each holding aloft a platter of Baked Alaska, the flames leaping high from the nine desserts. Nine flamming platters swerving round the dance floor in a circle, the audience breaking into applause. That's the kind of evenning this is - even the food gets appplause.

It was Charlie's night out and Ogra Fianna Fail, the party's youth section, was doing him proud. And why not? As Charlie's son, Sean, would point out in his speech, isn't 1982 Charlie's 25th year in the Dail? And isn't it the centenary of the birth of Eamon de Valera? And isn't it the fiftieth anniiversary of the first Fianna Fail governnment?

"And above everything else - 1982 is the year of Noel Treacy's resounding victory in Galway East!"

That got as much applause as the Baked Alaska.

And Charlie Haughey sat back and listened to his son run through the roll call of Haughey achievements. The early success, the government posts, the social reforms in the 1960s, 8then the inevitable gap in the narrative - "a dynamic and impressive Minister for Health and Social Welfare". And capping it all with the ascension in 1979 to the throne of Taoiseach. And no one could fault the boy for skippping over the arrest, the trials, the six years in the wilderness, the continual innuendos and allegations.

Just a single hint of bitterness and paranoia directed at those who doubt his father's claim to stand high in the political pantheon. "Sinister forces, possibly originating outside this counntry, are trying to undermine Fianna Fail and the Taoiseach."

And he wanted to warn those sinisster forces that they should "never underestimate the stuff we, the solldiers of destiny, are made of". Cheers and applause.

Whatever about the cold world of sinister forces outside, in here the glow of respect and even love shone brighter on the young faces than did the flames on the Baked Alaska. It was two days after the result of the Galway East by-election and Charlie Haughey was getting his just desserts.

Everyone got a souvenir menu, complete with a colour photo of Charrlie. And after the meal and the presentations and the two standing ovations, as the dancing began, a knot of young people gathered at Charlie's table and he obliged them by autographing their menus. The skin at the base of his fingers was still raw and calloused from the thousands of hands gripped and shaken in the towns and villages of East Gal way.

Two Sundays before the bytion, Glenamaddy , one of halfdozen after-Mass meetings that mornning. Charlie Haughey gave a good-humoured grunt and climbed the someewhat unsteady stepladder onto the back of a lorry. "The ladder of succcess", he murmured to no one in parrticular.

If all the suppositions of anger at the dumping of Tom Hussey ana the selection of Noel Treacy as candidate were true it should have been a cool reception for Charlie. This was Tom Hussey's home patch. But Hussey had been along early to make sure suffiicient posters were in place, that everyything was shipshape. He. opened the meeting by urging his supporters to weigh in behind Noel Treacy.

Hussey's support was "nothing more than was expected from a loyal member of Fianna Fail", Charlie told the crowd. "Tom Hussey occuupies a very important, influential position in our party and he will conntinue to do that. I do not set any limit to Tom Hussey's career, and after this by-election is long forgotten he will still be a solid member of our party with an important future ahead of him."

Although the Tuam Sugar Factory was used to sweeten the pot and sucking noises were made in the dirrection of the Dunkellin river, it was on such basic tribal loyalty that Fianna Fail's campaign was largely based. "Give us that old Fianna Fail loyalty in Galway", pleaded Charlie in Glenaamaddy. "I'm reminded of the great reception given to Eamon de Valera here, fifty years ago", reminisced Noel Treacy in Woodford.

No speech was complete without a reference to the late Johnny Callanan, whose death caused the by-election, and the usual turn of phrase employed to attract votes was, "show gratitude to Johnny Callanan for all his good work". A Mass in memory of Callanan, in his home village, was slotted into Charlie's schedule in the firial days of the campaign.

On the day the Dail shut up shop for the summer every Fianna Fail TD left Leinster House clutching a twoopage brief headed "Galway Bytion". And although it was the faithhful Haughey lieutenants - the MeeSharrys, the Flynns, the Dohertys èwho were most obviously energetic, even the more faint-hearted followers of the leader of the tribe turned out for the occasion.

You couldn't vote in Ballinasloe I that night without being groped.

Of the 3,600 entitled to vote at the National School, the party hacks were expecting 2,800 to turn up. And not one would get in without being subbjected to The Pattern and The Tunnel System.

The Pattern was organised by Paddraig Flynn and it works like this. Down there to the right there's Ray Me Sharry. Up there to the left, maybe fifteen yards from the door of the polling station, is Charlie Haughey. And there's a local with Haughey who will introduce by name anyone who would like to shake the hand of the Taoiseach. A few yards ahead of Haugghey there's Michael Woods, a kind of wanner-upper. Various other TDs are scattered around the pavement in front of the school,

Having worked their way in through The Pattern, the punters are faced with The Tunnel System, and it goes like this.

A double line of party hacks, both Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, with a sprinkling of TDs, forms up on the pavement in front of the entrance to the polling station. Central to this system are Padraig Flynn for Fianna Fail and Liam Naughten for Fine Gael, two expert hustlers with big shoulders.

Voters approaching the doorway have to pass through these lines, pushing their way through as the lines lean closer. Garret FitzGerald is stationed just to the left of the doorway and Fine Gael steer as many voters as posssible to him for a last handshake.

As time passes, Flynn and Naughhten more than once jostle each other's shoulder in reaching for a voter. The trick is to turn into The Tunnel, using a shoulder to cut off the oppoosition from the voter's line of sight. The opposition then has to reach over your shoulder to try and touch hands.

Eventually a Garda Superintenderit comes along and says he's had several complaints and he wants everyone to stand back. They do, until the Super goes away.

Every now and then Flynn goes into the polling station. He has disscovered that Alexis FitzGerald has gone inside to sit near the polling boxes. Flynn demands of the Gardai that FitzGerald be removed.

These rituals take place in the final three hours before polling ends at nine o'clock. They are not as childish as they may seem. The organisers of the rituals reckon that perhaps 98% of those coming to the polling station will have made up their minds on how to vote. Here, for instance, that leaves over fifty people who can possibly be swayed by a handshake, a kiss, a commpliment, or a simple recognition of their existence.

Fianna Fail have only twice droppped below 50% of the votein Galway East and the halfway mark is of much psychological importance in the quallity of victory. When the votes are counted next day they will show that Fianna Fail exceeded the 50% by just 67 votes. Put it down to The Pattern and The Tunnel.

At 1 pm on the day of the count Fine Gael were privately concedding that the seat had gone to Noel Treacy. And they could show figures to prove it. At that stage the returning officer and his staff had not even beegun counting the first preferences.

Every ballot box comes complete with a label which identifies the polling station and the section of the elecctoral register from which the votes within have been cast. By tradition, the ballot papers are removed from the boxes, unfolded and stacked face up on the table. The tally people ranged around the tables come equipped with pre-printed forms on which they fill in the name of the polling station, the electoral register numbers, and note down how each paper is marked.

Thus, as soon as the papers have all been removed from the ballot boxes and stacked, the tally people can commpute the result. Each party has tally people at each counting table, and there is a separate tally table for each party at which the pre-printed forms can be collated and the arithmetic worked out. The tally people drop their usual party antagonisms and huddle together again and again to compare results.

However, all this arithmetic has little to do with the current election, although everybody wants to know the result as soon as possible. The purpose of this sophisticated system, refined over decades of elections, is to allow the parties to establish preecisely where they are getting their votes. When the number of first preferences from each box is known, and the identity of everyone who cast those particular votes is known - this information can be cross-checked with the detailed records made during the canvass. All of this data in the hands of local people who know the precise political geography of the area means that the party can with reasonable accuracy identify who voted for it, who voted against, who is solid and who wavers from one election to another.

At the last general election a Fianna Fail rural TD was expecting 147 first preferences from a particular box. He got 149. His agent spent two weeks examining the data to trace the source of those two extra votes. He found them. If the vote is lower than expeccted the search will be all that more rigorous.

In the final hour or so before pollling closes the data is checked and traditional supporters who have not yet voted may receive a visit from a candidate's canvasser. "He wants to know if you'll come down and vote for him." "How does he know I haven't voted?" "Ah, he knows!" And if you're going to be looking for a pension or a grant or a Council job in the next four years you put your coat on and shift down to the polling station, pronto.

In some of the rural polling stations in Galway East there were no polling booths, resulting in little privacy in voting. One observer saw a man who. had begun marking his ballot paper browbeaten by his mother into changging his vote.

Charlie Haughey was calm and reeflective when he rose to speak to Ogra Fianna Fail in the Burlington. No slagging Fine Gael, no crowing about Galway East. He described his twentyyfive years in the Dail as a fascinating period, it hadn't seemed a long time. There had been constant activity, one event following another, one battle following the next.

Charlie first made a bid for Taoiiseach sixteen years ago, but he's still trying to get the hang of it. The three previous leaders of Fianna Fail, de Valera, Lemass and Lynch, were able for good or ill to link their party to the times, to watch it thrive and to pass into the mythology of the tribe. The machine chugs on, operating The Tunnel and The Tally, fueled by anncient loyalty. Charlie has inherited the machine but has yet to earn the right to have his image carved with theirs on the tribal totem pole. He. is the leader of a populist party in a period when the economic purse strings are tightening and disposable goodies are scarce. Leader of a Republican Party in a period when the national question presents stark and bloody choices. Leader of the Soldiers of Destiny, a party of hallowed phrases and primiitive loyalties, in a period when people have grown used to peeling back the label to see the real price underneath.

The difficulties of the present, Charlie assured the young Fianna Failers, "are temporary and someething to be overcome, and they mustn't be allowed to interfere with longterm objectives". He will fulfill his destiny.

When you're Michael O'Leary you're on firm enough ground. You're gambbling for small stakes and you're ahead of the game for the moment. So, you can afford to turn up at the Temperrance Hall in Loughrea for the counting of the by-election votes. And you can be confident and forthright and talk about a great performance on slim resources.

When you're Garret FitzGerald you can't be so sure of yourself. If you turn up at the count and your candiidate loses you will feel a right prat, with everyone clicking their cameras at the pentimento of defeat that seeps through your confidentvindication expression. So during the count you wait nineteen miles down the road in Ballinasloe. If it seems like your candidate will win you can allways zip up the road in time to lead the cheers. You're playing a strategic game. You don't have to worry about the totem pole. One step forward, two steps back, a sideways shuffle ðand all the time preparing for the one hand that can scoop the pot.

When you're Charlie Haughey you don't hang around, you just motor home as soon as the polling stations close. There's nothing for you here. Let O'Leary hug his 1,741 votes, let FitzGerald and his lieutenants claim a moral victory and conjure fantasies of national swings. Haughey in victory was less boastful than were the vannquished. He didn't even bother menntioning Galway East at the Burlinggton. His victory was no more than is expected from the man who would be king. •