Thursday, June 22, 2006

Trouble in the PD’s

The Irish Times is reporting that a leadership struggle is going on within the PD’s.

The Progressive Democrats have been convulsed by a power struggle over the past week with Michael McDowell claiming he had an arrangement with Mary Harney that she would step down as party leader before the next election,

While peace seems to have been declared.

At the meeting, which lasted for more than three hours, there was a frank exchange of views between the two sides but the consensus was that it would be suicidal for the party to embark on a leadership struggle with a year to go to a general election.

In the event, Mr McDowell withdrew his threat not to run in the next election while Ms Harney made it clear she would not be making any attempt to remove Mr McDowell as party president or Minister for Justice.

It remains to be seen will this split the party and how it will effect the party in the future will it damage it’s election chances.

Also on Irish Election.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

A fair conclusion to come to, a leadership election would be very damaging for any party at this stage, especially one between McDowell and Harney (forgive me for assuming that they wouldn't play nice).
I still strongly hold the belief that McDowell will not get re-elected next year anyway; perhaps Harney does too... if both are TD's next year then McDowell will set his dogs on her once again, but if it's just Harney then he wouldn't stand half a chance for another 4-5 years.