THERE are just a couple of days to the general election here. Voting is on Thursday, May 24, and at this stage, in spite of the media's attempt to bury Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Bertie Ahern and the early collapse in the Fianna Fail vote, it's now swung back and is too close to call.

That's not going to stop me calling it, of course. But let's look at a few of the factors that are swaying the voters first.

Up to the middle of last week it appeared that the alternative government of Fine Gael and Labor was on course for victory, possibly with the inclusion of the Green Party in a so-called rainbow coalition. Support for the present Fianna Fail-Progressive Democrat government which has been in power for the past 10 years seemed to have collapsed.

On Monday of last week, for example, the Irish Independent's lead headline was: "FF in Nosedive - Ahern Party Faces 20-Seat Loss." Early last week the rest of the media here, including the other papers and radio and TV, were in agreement as opinion polls showed support for Fianna Fail continuing to slide.

The view was unanimous. Ahern was finished.

How wrong can you be? By the end of last week, two opinion polls showed voters swinging back to Fianna Fail, with support up a point or so. Then on Monday of this week the Irish Times/MRBI poll saw support for Fianna Fail jump an astonishing five points, showing that the turnaround had accelerated.

This brought Fianna Fail back up to the level it had at the last election, and with the Progressive Democrats also on the same level as last time, there is now a real chance that the present government could make it back again. With support for the Fine Gael-Labor-Green rainbow now slipping, it's neck and neck as voting day approaches.

This came as a big surprise to the media here who had been picking over Ahern's bones and were writing off his chances of getting back as taoiseach for a historic third term. But it came as no surprise to me because it was clear from the middle of last week that the tide had turned.

What made the difference? The turning point was the head to head TV debate on Thursday night between Ahern and the Fine Gael leader and alternative taoiseach Enda Kenny, which had almost a million viewers.

As the country watched, Ahern wiped the floor with Kenny, exposing him as a leader relying almost completely on slogans and sound bites, with a poor grasp of the details of how the country is run.

Kenny was left visibly floundering as Ahern picked holes in the costings of Fine Gael's plans for the future. It was devastating to the point of being embarrassing.

Even the shortcomings of the public health service, one of Fine Gael's big issues, were fumbled by Kenny. An example was his reference to one of the big Dublin hospitals waiting for an important piece of equipment for 30 years. Ahern patiently pointed out that the hospital had only opened 20 years ago.

Kenny insisted that the health service was in crisis. Ahern admitted that there were bottlenecks in some A&E departments, but reminded Kenny of how spending on health had soared and how the waiting lists for many procedures, like heart surgery and hip operations for example, had been cleared.

And it got worse, much worse, as Ahern tied his challenger in knots with his grasp of the detail of how the economy works, winning every aspect of the debate including the part dealing with the emotive health issue.

The debate began with Ahern being examined once again on his personal finances. Even on that, despite some of the more bizarre aspects of the story of how he bought his house, he came through as perhaps careless at the time, but basically honest.

The next morning the Irish Independent (and The Irish Times and commentators on radio and TV) got it badly wrong. The Independent headline was: "Ahern Shades it But Fails to Land Knockout." The paper's lead story said that he had failed to deliver the clear victory he needed to pull back the Fine Gael leader's advantage in the polls.

I could not believe my eyes reading this stuff. Commentators here have been so obsessed with Ahern's house that they can no longer see the wood for the trees.

He may have no race horses, no yacht, no country mansion, indeed no signs of any serious wealth whatsoever, yet most of the commentators seem to suspect he's another Charles Haughey. And that colors their judgment.

That and a fear of appearing to favor one side, especially the Fianna Fail side, meant that the papers here ducked it. They could not handle the truth. Ahern had destroyed the Kenny challenge, but instead of saying that the media suggested the debate had been a draw.

The vast majority of viewers thought otherwise. Monday's Irish Times poll was taken on the two days after the debate, on Friday and Saturday, and Fianna Fail got an amazing five point bounce!

Thursday's debate between Ahern and Kenny was preceded the night before by another live debate between Michael McDowell of the Progressive Democrats, Pat Rabbitte of Labor, Trevor Sergeant of the Greens and Gerry Adams of Sinn Fein. This was notable mainly for the way Adams self-destructed, exposed by the others as someone with little understanding of the detail of southern politics.

This was even worse Enda Kenny's embarrassing performance. Adams talked in simplistic slogans, like a student revolutionary. People have rights, he intoned again and again, whether the question was about hospital beds, school places, jobs, pensions or anything else.

We all know people have rights. The challenge is to prioritize and fund competing rights when there are limited resources and deal with all the complex detail that this involves.

The other three looked like grown-ups and discussed the issues like grown-ups living in the real world. Adams came across as a naive and sulky teenager in a fantasy world all of his own.

He also walked himself into trouble. At one point he was giving out about the government's failure to tackle the drug problem, giving McDowell the chance to point out that Sinn Fein's election coffers had been swelled by millions of U.S. dollars from the drug dealing FARC guerrillas in Columbia.

At another point Adams was being all sanctimonious about how Sinn Fein elected representatives live on the industrial wage. (He forgot to say that they are driven around in limos and all their expenses are paid ... so, like royalty, they don't really need cash.)

McDowell pointed out that Adams has a valuable holiday home in Donegal. Adams laughed and said this was owned by the bank. Was that the Northern Bank (the one robbed by the IRA), McDowell wanted to know?

This made Adams sulk even more. He needs to grow up, and he needs to realize that you can't pretend to know the solutions unless you first master the details of the problems. People have rights, but slogans ain't enough when you're live on TV for an hour.

The fact is Sinn Fein has no credible economic policy (it's a sort of Castro-lite). But the exposure of Adams as the emperor with no clothes is unlikely to have much effect on the Sinn Fein vote here in deprived areas where people can be bought by simple solutions and promises.

Sinn Fein should get eight or 10 seats and, along with the Greens and the independents, could hold the balance of power. But Fianna Fail is adamant that they will not share power with them, at least not yet.

Labor has said that it wants a change of government and will not share power with Fianna Fail. But that's also something that could change if Labor decides it must do its national duty to keep the Shinners out of power.

So here's my prediction. Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats will come close enough to make Ahern taoiseach again, perhaps with the support of some independents.

If Fianna Fail slips a bit, it could include the Greens who have been careful about keeping their options open. Even a Fianna Fail- Labor coalition might be on the cards, if the numbers require it (and Pat Rabbitte will get over any problem by having a special Labor delegate conference to rubber stamp a deal).

That's how I'm calling it. Just like last year when he was under attack, Ahern's bounce in the polls is back. So he will be back as taoiseach again.

It's not just a sympathy vote for him, either. As the election looms, people start to dump theoretical issues and vote in their immediate self-interest, and the core decider again becomes the economy, stupid.

Ahern has delivered huge prosperity, as well as peace in the North. Behind all the bumbling and mangled speeches, he is the most able performer in Irish politics, with an unrivalled knowledge of what makes our economy tick.

People know that. And they won't put their prosperity at risk with an alternative taoiseach who just does not cut it.