Mary McAleese has been appointed to a second term as President of Ireland because none of the other potential candidates could manage a nomination. There are, apparently, two ways for a candidate to be nominated: (a) get the backing of four county councils or (b)get the backing of 20 members of the Oireachtas (note to self - find out how to spell that word), basically parliament.
For a whole load of reasons, the opposition parties couldn't or wouldn't nominate a candidate to run against President McAleese, probably because they knew it was a fore-gone conclusion that she would win. This created some bad feeling within the opposition parties and this is where Bertie Ahern blew it.
Ahern should have arranged it so that at the last minute 20 of his party's representatives would nominate all those who wanted to run - Dana, Eamon Ryan, and Michael D. Higgins.
McAleese would still have won easily, but Ahern would have caught the opposition flat-footed and helped pour fuel on the fires burning in each party. In addition, Ahern would have come across as a hero of Irish Democracy. Irish people love elections and today, they feel cheated.
