Irish Election Results Thread

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yeah, makes sense. But do they realize that strategically this is an epic fail that will likely kill them in the next election, meaning that they will have wasted a historic occasion to become a true government party ?

Presumably such concerns exist, yes (particularly as that very thing has happened to them in the past; the aftermath of the 1992 election). I suspect that they will probably try to drive a harder bargain than they have done in the past.

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It isn't as though Fine Gael really believes in much as a political party and such a government would not be all that stable.

Still, early days yet. Media speculation is well ahead of itself (as usual) and is mostly based on past form.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Perhaps it would make sense to unlock the older thread for post-election speculation like this?

Anyway, back to the election itself: Wicklow is looking like a complete mess. RTE report lawyers everywhere.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Apparently Ireland also elected its first ever openly gay TD in Dominic Hannigan (Labour - Meath E)

He topped the poll as well.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Perhaps we could see it more as part of a pattern of previously dominant but weirdly unideological small 'c' conservative parties crashing and burning? If only because the same thing happened in Northern Ireland recently with the UUP.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Gerry Adams laughed the idea off on RTE the other day.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I wouldn't call the Liberals conservative, but the pattern of changing policies to fit popularity is apt - each party (though not so much the SAP) has been in power so often and so long, that the electorate has gotten tired of them, with other parties to the left and right providing a more hard-edged message that elicits more excitement. The desertion of Quebec, which was the reason for the Liberal dominance in the twentieth century, is also a big factor in Canada (and does tie into my previous point).

I wasn't thinking of the Canadian Liberals or the SAP. Neither have suffered an electoral collapse* and neither are small 'c' conservative clientelist parties (though there's always been a clientelist element to the Liberals, granted. But it's never been a defining feature of the party; no one votes Liberal because they want their cut) and both have clear enough ideologies; revisionist socialism (or whatever else anyone feels like calling it) and that oddly mild thing that is Canadian Nationalism. What does Fianna Fail, or for that matter the UUP, stand for these days? That's not actually a rhetorical question.

Of course that question has been impossible to answer without resorting for abuse for decades now. The problem for Fianna Fail is that all they had going for them was the Irish habit of passing down voting patterns down the generations irrespective of changing circumstance and the property boom. And when the latter turned into a depression the former was suddenly (and quite obviously) weaker than ever before.

*In particular the 'crisis' of the SAP is really only a crisis by the standards of the SAP. Fianna Fail, however, have just lost over half their support from the previous election. As have, interestingly enough, quite a few of the remaining genuine Christian Democratic parties in Europe, most of which have more in common with Fianna Fail than with their supposed comrades Fine Gael.

Must stress that I'm not playing around with any theories here, just randomly speculating.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Al, I would add that Fianna Fail´s base at a local level has been eroding for the last twenty years -

Which, of course, is death for a clientelist party. Can't go round dispensing favours if there's no one in a position to do so.

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Yeah, that's one of the things I was trying to get at. Once all of that became irrelevant there was nothing left to rally around if things went down the tubes.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Pretty!

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Talking of Dublin South, votes by party in 2011...

FG 36.4, Ross 23.5, Labour 18.0, FF 9.4, Greenies 6.8, SF 2.6

And the previous Labour surge in 1992...

FF 32.6, Labour 28.9, FG 20.3, PD 8.7, Greenis 3.8, DL 1.1

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The Labour surge this time around was much more concentrated in working class areas. The swing to Labour in DS was well under the national average

Yeah, that's what struck me as interesting. Of course it might be just as fleeting as that of 1992, but it feels more real, at least potentially.

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Bribing the homeless?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yes but... a lot will depend on how Labour do in government.

No disagreement there at all.

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Do we?

Ah, but will they dare that after the fiasco that was free cheese?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I think the time has come to post that picture again:

[Filuwaúrdjan]

But it's never been a defining feature of the party; no one votes Liberal because they want their cut) and both have clear enough ideologies; revisionist socialism (or whatever else anyone feels like calling it) and that oddly mild thing that is Canadian Nationalism.

Has the Liberal Party traditionally stood for revisionism? I know regrettably little of Canadian history, but my impression was that the Trudeau government was the only Liberal government that had clear socialist tendencies.

No, revisionism was a reference to the Social Democrats.