By Paddy Clancy

MICHAEL McDowell’s first pledge as new leader of the Progressive Democrats was that the party will continue in power with Fianna Fail after next year’s general election.

Justice Minister McDowell was elected unopposed after a weekend of behind-the-scenes negotiations with his two main rivals when Mary Harney resigned the leadership after 13 years at the helm of the party.

Her resignation was as sudden as it was unexpected. Only her husband Brian Geoghegan and a few trusted close confidantes were aware of her plan.

She decided on the move during a three-week holiday in Italy. Her timing is widely accepted as deliberately designed to give the new leader a decent span to put his own plans for the party into effect and to formulate an election strategy.

McDowell was acclaimed leader after a deal that involved appointing Liz O’Donnell as his deputy and making comparative newcomer Tom Parlon president of the party.

Parlon, a former Irish Farmers’ Association leader, only entered politics five years ago at the invitation of Harney.

Harney, who hasn’t retired from politics — yet — remains in government as minister for health.

The appointment of O’Donnell as deputy party leader is seen as a significant gesture towards quickly healing a potential rift.

When there were divisions in June over when Harney should resign, she was persuaded not to go then by a small but powerful clique led by O’Donnell. They feared a McDowell leadership.

But over the weekend his swift extension of the hand of friendship in making the appointments served to block any potential re-emergence of a rift.

Parlon said he was “honored” to be president of the party. O’Donnell said, “I am very pleased at the outcome of negotiations over the weekend. The entire party can unite under the new leadership team headed by Michael McDowell.”

McDowell will now serve as Tanaiste (Deputy Prime Minister) in the coalition government of Fianna Fail and the PDs.

Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Bertie Ahern was in Finland when McDowell was appointed. But they spoke by phone.

McDowell said he told Ahern he was willing to continue in partnership with him in government until the 2007 election.

Reflecting an electoral campaign mood that has underpinned most political speeches in recent weeks, McDowell predicted the Irish electorate will reject what he described as the “slump coalition” of Fine Gael and Labor.

He said the only way they could form a government after the next election would be by cobbling together a coalition with the Green Party and “far-left” Independents.

He did not see “any circumstances” in which the PDs would enter a coalition with Fine Gael and Labor. The only option was a strong, progressive coalition of reform containing the Progressive Democrats and Fianna Fail.

McDowell insisted he would bring his party to the next election with the intention of doubling the party’s current number of Dail (Parliament) seats. “We are not an exhausted or spent force,” he added.

McDowell also paid tribute to Harney, who, along with her predecessor, Des O’Malley, “raised the flag of hope for a generation of Irish people who had been betrayed by the politics of failure.”

He said Harney was the most successful employment minister in the European Union before her move to the Department of Health.

“She has also had the courage and patriotism to take political responsibility for the radical transformation of our health system,” he added.

McDowell, who is 55 and a former attorney general, is only the PD’s third leader since the party’s formation 21 years ago by a group of leading Fianna Fail members disaffected with Charles Haughey’s swashbuckling style.

The fledgling party, formed mainly by Des O’Malley and Harney, attracted a handful of dissidents from other parties, including McDowell from Fine Gael.

Harney, 53, was the first female leader of an Irish political party and the longest-serving woman in the houses of Parliament, serving first as a senator before her election to the Dail, the main parliamentary forum.

She told a snap press conference at the Merrion Hotel in Dublin when announcing her resignation that the differences between herself and McDowell over the leadership in June had not affected her decision.

At that time, she had vowed to lead the party into the next election but said she changed her mind when away from the political “hothouse” in Leinster House over the summer.

“I came to the conclusion that now is the right time for the party to elect a new leader,” she said. “It is also the right time for me to vacate that position.”

Harney insisted she had not come under pressure from anyone to step down. She said she accepted she had taken on too much by accepting the demanding health portfolio at the same time as being party leader.

She never expected to be leader for so long, especially as her predecessor, Des O’Malley, had only been at the helm for eight years.