Irish Election Results Thread

[tpfkaw]

Given that by all accounts FG and FF have 100% IDENTICAL policies (ie: both right of centre pro-business parties) - why doesn't FG simply take on FF as a junior coalition partner and simply have a rightwing FF-FG government with a leftwing opposition made up of Labour, SF and various leftwing Indies?

I didn't really understand this either...  Apparently there's century-old bad blood between FF and FG, and they absolutely hate each other (the founders of Fianna Fail opposed the treaty creating th Irish Free State, the founders of Fine Gael supported it).  A second reason is that FF is seen as the "government" party and FG is the "opposition" party, and FG would have no reason for existing other than to oppose FF.  Also, since the election can't really be seen as anything other than a total repudiation of FF, it would be seen as violating "the will of the people" for the governing coalition to include FF.

[tpfkaw]

Enda welcomes the "biggest endorsement" of FG in the history of the party.

FG 2011: 36.1%
FG 1982: 37.3%

TBF, FG never actually beat FF in a way like this, so I don't think it's an exaggeration.

And, isn't this the largest number of seats for them ever?

[tpfkaw]

In the last couple of years, the famous three most long-dominant parties - Liberals in Canada, Social Democrats in Sweden, and now Fianna Fail - have all had historically bad elections

Don't forget the LPJ!