The knives are out in Northern Ireland's SDLP. There is no doubt that Margaret Ritchie will face a leadership challenge at the party conference this November.
The only question is how many challengers there will be, and whether any of them will have what it takes to arrest the party's decline.
Political vultures, in the shape of Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil, are watching from a distance to see what pickings there may be. The SDLP looks exhausted and Fianna Fáil, who once considered a merger, is now keener to start up in Northern Ireland on its own. Micheál Martin, its leader, may wait two or three years as he attempts to rebuild support in the republic, but a split in the SDLP might tempt him to challenge Sinn Féin sooner.
Already, Patsy McGlone, a Mid Ulster MLA and Ritchie's deputy, has declared his intention of running for the leadership. Dr Alasdair McDonnell, a South Belfast representative, is expected to declare at the end of the month. Other names are being mooted in a party increasingly desperate to get back on track and reclaim the rewards it believes are due for providing most of the big ideas of the peace process.
Under John Hume, the SDLP relentlessly championed powersharing, cross-border bodies involving the Irish government, and an end to IRA violence based on referendums north and south. The party accuses Sinn Féin of stealing their political clothes but, if so, they seem to suit the republican party pretty well.
The question hovering in the background is the one posed in 2005 by what Derek Mooney, a Fianna Fáil political adviser, said to James Kenny, the then US ambassador to Ireland. Mooney, a long-time advocate of Fianna Fáil organising in the north, told the ambassador that the SDLP would never recover its position as the largest nationalist party "because it is seen only as a peace process party".
That frank appraisal emerged from WikiLeaks and since then Mooney has told friends that he is pleased to have been quoted accurately.
And, of course, his prediction has been proved right so far.
The sense of mission accomplished, and of a declining party living on its past glories, was confirmed in another WikiLeaks cable dating from December last year. Kamala Shirin Lakhdhir, the American consul in Belfast, spoke of a party "seeking to right itself following years of decline in the post-Good Friday agreement era".
She said that under Ritchie, who was elected leader in February 2010, the SDLP "will seek to regain the party's pre-eminence among Northern Ireland's nationalist voters by differentiating itself from Sinn Féin on the economy, building a shared society, and by putting forth credible plans for a future united Ireland". It didn't work out.
Lakhdhir reported that many in the SDLP felt Ritchie "lacks the political muscle and business acumen needed to rebuild the party's structures in the post-John Hume, postpeace process context".
Ritchie has tried to heal wounds, but has experienced serious problems.
McDonnell ran against her, losing by 187 votes to 222, and told the Americans that as leader Ritchie would "preside over more of the same" and lead the party into further electoral irrelevance. She sought to buy off his support base, seen by critics as favouring a link up with Fianna Fáil. She appointed McGlone, who had run McDonnell's campaign against her, as deputy leader. It has not been an entirely happy partnership. After the Assembly elections in May, McGlone let it be known that he expected to get the ministry to which the party was entitled under the power-sharing dispensation. Instead, Ritchie gave it to Alex Attwood, a West Belfast MLA who had been a minister last time around.
McGlone blamed the party's falling vote on poor leadership, and Ritchie countered by saying that he was part of that leadership. It was an opportunity to stamp her authority on the party by replacing him, but she seemed to lack the strength, and perhaps the appetite, to take him on openly.
Despite the bad blood, many were puzzled why McGlone picked the beginning of August, a slack news time and months away from the conference, to show his hand. One theory is that the timing is because journalists who had been briefed wanted to get the story out before the holidays. It was floated by Mark Devenport of the BBC, and shortly afterwards McGlone confirmed it to the Irish News. The risk was that it would leak out and be talked about to the extent that an announcement months later would look like a damp-squib offering from an indecisive candidate. Ritchie immediately stated that she would also be putting her name forward at the conference.
McDonnell is from Cushendall in the Antrim glens and was holidaying in nearby Glenarm at the beginning of this month. It is said that McGlone visited him there on the day before the Irish News story. He told his old ally he intended contesting the leadership and would like to have McDonnell's support.
SDLP sources say that a long discussion ensued, at the end of which McDonnell told McGlone that he would also be running, but would not be needing his support this time around.
This certainly fits McDonnell's frank, occasionally abrasive, personality.
Last year, party officials told Lakhdhir's aides that he would be good on business and the economy, but conceded that he could be "like a bull in a china shop" when he encountered opposition.
He is not afraid to "kick ass" when he feels it is required, and was supported for the leadership by people who felt that ass needed kicking. Well known throughout the party, his support was mainly from activists and was weaker among MLAs and functionaries who feared losing authority in a shake-up.
There are other leadership possibilities.
Conall McDevitt, a Dubliner and former Labour party activist, is a South Belfast MLA and regarded by many as a future leader, but has probably not spent enough time in the Assembly. Some party figures say they would like Mark Durkan, the former leader and who is an MP but not an MLA, to resume his old job, allowing McDevitt to lead the Assembly party. That would smooth the transition to a new generation.
Sinn Féin has created a precedent in this regard, with Gerry Adams leading the party and picking Assembly ministers from the Dail, but Martin McGuinness leading the party day-to-day in Stormont.
So far though, this is all talk, since neither Durkan nor McDevitt have shown any inclination to enter the fray. What the SDLP really needs is a period in opposition to sort itself out. That is how defeated parties normally rebuild. So far, no prospective leader has had the courage to suggest surrendering the party's single ministry and fleeing to the back benches.
