Curtain Finally Closes On Tragic Comedy
Filed Under Country Curtain | Posted on September 17, 2008
PD. Perpetually Dithering. Practically Disbanded. It was hardly the end envisioned by Ciaran Cannon when he took over as leader of the Progressive Democrats six months ago.
Just before 10pm last night, he emerged from the meeting to face the cameras. Pale faced and composed, although clearly upset, he announced that his party was “no longer politically viable”.
The denouement in the long-running tragicomedy that has been the Progressive Democrats’ sorry lot for the past few turbulent months played out in the Keadeen Hotel in Newbridge last night.
It was a dramatic curtain-closer on this long-drawn out political demise, and Mr Cannon was anxious that the chief mourners were given suitable privacy to grieve. “I would ask that, in the interim, the party, and particularly the elected members of the party, are given some space to deal with what for them is going to be a very traumatic time,” he said.
There was sadness, but there was the odd flash of anger, too, when the leader laid out the stark choices his party faced.
“We had the choice of allowing our precious elected members to be picked off the edge of a herd like wounded animals,” he said with emotion as the cameras clicked.
It’s been quite a while since this political party attracted a media scrum of such a size in fact, the last occasion was the sudden resignation of Michael McDowell after he became one of six PD TDs to lose their seats in the general election last year.
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