Bertie Ahern is the most popular political leader in the country, has been leader of Fianna Fail for more than a decade, has won two general elections and is well on course to win a third. Yet at a time when his political skills should be taken for granted, he is still being castigated as a bungling ditherer.

Time and again Ahern stumbles at the sort of hurdles that any competent manager would clear with ease. He struggles to sack ministers who fail, he labours over routine reshuffles, and he toils over the routine task of dislodging ministers who plan to retire at the next election. He does not punish members of his party who agitate against government policy; he prevaricates over allegations of corruption; he lacks any firm moral convictions; and he resides over an administration that has proved itself to be extraordinarily careless with taxpayers’ money.

It is all very bizarre, and begs the question: how could somebody so apparently inept run a government for more than eight years without a murmur of opposition from within his own ranks, with barely a dissenting voice from his coalition partners, and without a glove being laid on him by opposition parties?

Part of the answer must surely be that Ahern, for all his faults, has some seriously strong attributes as a political leader. It is all too easy to dismiss him as a ditherer — though there are times when he deserves to be called one — but his success is without question, and potentially without parallel.

Michael McDowell, the minister for justice and president of the Progressive Democrats, would have us believe that it does not really matter who leads the government because it is the junior coalition partner that decides the direction that the government will take.

McDowell paints a simple picture, in which two large, ideologically empty parties stand in the centre with snapping political dogs at the fringes: the PDs to the centre right, the rest (Greens, Sinn Fein and Labour) to the loony left.

The justice minister may be right, but there are many who would include the current Labour party in the ideologically empty centre rather than at the hard left of Irish politics. McDowell’s point, however, might help explain why Ahern’s failings as a leader have not destroyed his reputation and terminated his tenure at the top.

The taoiseach’s recent problems have been magnified because there is not a huge amount happening. A few Fianna Fail backbenchers threw rebellious shapes about the new fishing legislation, which will go down badly in a small number of constituencies because it might help put habitual criminals out of business. Other than that, the government sails on serenely. The economy continues to prosper, the unions are safely wrapped into the latest round of national pay awards, and there are no obvious economic crises looming internationally. Large numbers of voters will soon be accessing their government-enhanced special savings accounts, and there is yet another giveaway budget to come before Ahern has to seek re-election.

Best of all, of course, is that the two largest opposition parties remain on a plateau. Fine Gael is stuck with Enda Kenny, a leader who fails to inspire and has nothing more to offer, while Labour’s Pat Rabbitte has not delivered on his early promise. Just as encouraging for Ahern is that Sinn Fein appears to be going through its first genuinely difficult period since its rebirth as a quasi-democratic party.

It may be due to tensions in the provisional movement, or perhaps some strategic decisions by the Sinn Fein leadership — such as replacing Nicky Kehoe with the ersatz Mary Lou McDonald in Dublin Central — have backfired. Whatever the reasons, Sinn Fein’s climb up the opinion polls has been stayed, and that’s more good news for Ahern.

But what of those problems? First, Ahern failed to move decisively against Ivor Callely, the former junior transport minister who popped up like a pustule out of the political landscape just before the budget with a number of credibility issues that required swift lancing. Ahern hesitated and hesitated until Callely eventually resigned, stealing the budget’s thunder as he went.

Ahern then took for ever to choose Callely’s replacement and, to the bafflement of his backbenchers, opted for Mary Wallace, a TD who colleagues claim has neither ability nor manners.

Sean Haughey, a modestly accomplished TD with ideas of greatness that exceed his competence, took umbrage, as did other disappointed junior-minister wannabes who think that more of the electorate will vote for them if they hold minor office.

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