PEARSE DOHERTY HAS no personal ambition to lead Sinn Féin.
He’s said it before and has been pretty emphatic, but that hasn’t stopped the Donegal TD from being considered among the contenders to succeed Gerry Adams.
The current Sinn Féin president has been in situ for 33 years and has pledged to lead his party into the next election. Beyond that, Adams’s intentions are unclear.
Doherty and his parliamentary colleague, Mary Lou McDonald, are frequently ranked among the contenders to replace Adams, but both shun questions about their ambitions in a way you’d expect politicians to do.
“If a vacancy arises in the short term then I wouldn’t be interested in contesting that vacancy,” Doherty told TheJournal.ie this week.
What about in five years’ time?
I’d have to reassess the situation.
But the Donegal TD has a young family and the strain of travelling up and down from his constituency – a four hour journey – each week has made him consider life beyond politics altogether.
Though he admits he’d like to be Minister for Finance, he somewhat surprisingly revealed that he doesn’t necessarily enjoy being a TD.
So what about life beyond politics for Pearse Doherty?
It involves a corner shop in rural Donegal and selling sweets. Take a look:
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