Two elections
took place in Ireland last Friday (Three in Limerick, which also had its first
Mayoral Election), but you would be forgiven for thinking that there were in
fact four or more. Depending on who you asked, a variety of parties had both a
good and bad day at the polls. Unlike Schrodinger’s Cat, the parties remain
very much alive, though some more alive than others, with none actually licking
their wounds.
We knew much
of the results of the local elections by Sunday evening, apart from the epic
count in Newbridge which saw four re-counts and neither candidate involved
being elected. They key result, which we knew on Saturday night, was the
national result. By the time the weekend came to an end, we knew that there was
a correlation between the local and EU results, in terms of party polling at
least.
Sinn Féin’s
Michelle Gildernew MP conceded a little early, but was quick to change her mind
and put herself back in contention for a seat, which she was. Fine Gael leader
Simon Harris was like a PR machine, and burst out of the traps to throw a few
digs at Sinn Féin. Calculators in hand, Sinn Féin rapidly responded that they
had in fact increased their vote since the 2019 local and EU elections. Simon
pointed out that they had a terrible election that year, losing half of their
councillors and 2 MEPs. Dodging that, Mary Lou pointed out that the government
figures were marginally down on 2019 while SF were marginally up. And so on, so
on.
Meanwhile
Labour and Aontú were happy with a boost in numbers, and while the Social
Democrats added a few council seats, they seemed disappointed in their EU
results, falling short of the quarter quota needed to claim expenses, never
mind even catching a glimpse of a seat. The Greens lost both MEPs and half of
their councillors, breathing a sigh of relief that they actually elected
someone. Independent Ireland, a political party that self-identifies as Independents,
won an EU seat in Midlands North West, came close in Dublin, and put up a
decent performance in Ireland South. Many of their councillors were incumbents,
and sailed in on much of their own steam, while new candidates for the party/not-a-party
didn’t perform at the same level. People Before Profit adopted a Palestine
Before Potholes approach to the election, which saw their vote shrink slightly;
in Ireland South it was they who in fact were the 1%.
Full details
of the elections can be found online on RTÉ, various media sites, and indeed
the local authorities’ websites. What may be more confusing to some than how surpluses
are distributed, are actually if the results were good and bad. Political
results are in the eye of the beholder, or so it seems from media coverage. So
were the elections good or bad? It really was Schrodinger’s Election.
Sinn Féin –
Yes the results were better than 2019, but 2019 was a collapse compared to
2014, which was a phenomenal result compared to 2009 … Let’s be honest here, it
was a terrible election for Sinn Féin. A year ago I wondered if they would run
a third EU candidate in Midlands North West, where they actually lost their MEP
seat. Now that may partly be due to strategy… it was mostly due to poor strategy. Fingers
can be pointed to transfers, but running a candidate from outside the
constituency simply didn’t work. Michelle Gildernew, MP for Fermanagh-South
Tyrone, didn’t have the local base that benefitted the other candidates when it
came to transfers.
A year ago
they were above 30% in successive polls, they polled over 11% in the local and
EU votes. Despite a downward trend in the polls, they were still polling at
least double their actual result. So compared to 2019, yes they barely
increased their vote, and barely increased their seats, but compared to 2023,
they polled little more than 30% of their 30+% a year ago.
Fine Gael – I
mean, technically a victory, but does ‘technically a victory’ really count as a
victory. Small losses compared to 2019, but overall not a bad day at the polls.
They lost 1 MEP in Ireland South, and akin to SF, it was down to poor strategy,
they should have been in the hunt for two. In MNW running two celebrity
candidates and doing their best not to talk about policy actually seemed to pay
off. Both MEPs were as popular or unpopular as each other, and they pretty much
split the Fine Gael vote 50-50, if it had even been 60-40, one would have been
in serious trouble, so fine were the margins.
What the
election did, was steady the ship under its new Captain Harris, and it looks
like smooth sailing into the next General Election for the Wicklow TD. Not too
long ago there was talk of significant losses for Fine Gael, so much so that it
threatened their Seanad dominance, since it is mainly councillors who vote for senators.
A good national polling figure and a solid return of councillors and MEPs,
along with some great spin, has made it a decent day at the polls for Fine Gael.
Fianna Fáil –
Much like Fine Gael, they had a decent day at the polls, with minimal losses,
and regional strategy being the downfall of one of their MEP campaigns. Where
FG blundered their chances of a second seat in Ireland South, Fianna Fáil
managed the same feat in Midlands North West. Following what turned out to be a
pointless election convention which saw Laois-Offaly TD Barry Cowen selected as
the Fianna Fáil candidate for the EU election, FF decided to add both Senator
Lisa Chambers and Senator Niall Blaney to the ticket, despite FF not having any
seats going into the election.
I said it
prior to the double addition, that a smart move would be to add Chambers to the
ticket, particularly for geographic reasons. Blaney on the other hand did not
have the same profile as Chambers, and was located too close to the Mayo woman
in Donegal. Cowen was elected pretty comfortably, while Chambers just didn’t
have enough votes to seriously be in contention for a seat. Blaney’s transfers
split between Chambers and Cowen, when it was Chambers who really needed them.
It would have been close, but with a better campaign strategy I can’t help but
feel that Fianna Fáil could have left a seat behind.
Locally they
performed well, retaining the title of largest party locally, though just three
councillors of Fine Gael, while they fell behind in the popular vote, just 0.1%
behind Fine Gael. They don’t seem to have spun the story quite as much as Fine
Gael, with Mícheál Martin’s position solidified following marginal wins and
losses locally, with the party being the biggest winners of the EU elections,
going from 2 to 4 MEPS.
Labour &
Social Democrats – Labour and ‘Purple Labour’ share the same family tree, and speculation
continues to arise as to whether they will heal the wounds of their recent
split which saw the formation of the Soc Dems. I’ll pre-empt that move and lump
them into the same analysis. A new female leader bringing a new energy to the
party, a decent performance in the locals, though far from where they would
want to be, both particularly struggling outside of urban areas.
Apart from
Aodhán Ó Ríordáin being elected MEP for Dublin, both parties performed terribly
in the EU elections. Even in Dublin, the SD candidate didn’t manage to meet the
quarter of a quota needed to reclaim their expenses. Stagnation is a real
danger for these two parties, hovering around 4% just won’t cut it if they want
to become serious parties. Their saving grace is that they are bleeding in new
talent, so apart from a merger I don’t see either party disappearing anytime
soon.
Aontú – ‘Almost
trebled their local representation’ has to be the spin of the election,
considering they went from 3 councillors to 8. It’s not a wrong analysis, but
it certainly doesn’t tell the full story. I think that they needed to get into
double-digits to have some hope for the future. At 8, they are the smallest of
the main parties, with even PBP getting 13 councillors.
It seemed
like the strategy was to focus their efforts on certain constituencies in the
hopes of winning them. For example in Limerick, they contested three of the six
constituencies, won a seat in one, came very close in another, and performed
well in the third. It looks bad that they didn’t contest so many
constituencies, but I’m guessing that it could have stretched the new party’s
resources too much. Still, a seat is a seat, and perhaps something to build on.
Leader Peadar
Tóibín’s attempt at Europe doesn’t seem to have backfired, a good vote to save
face, while not having to lead the party from Belgium was probably the best
outcome for the party. Though it looks like Peadar Tóibín is more popular than
his party, their EU candidates didn’t perform even close to the same level as
he did in MNW. They can pass it off as an election of party-building, but they’ll
need to build better next time around.
Green Party –
Survival was victory for the Green Party in the local elections, and despite
losing both of their MEPs, Ciarán Cuffe in Dublin, and Grace O’Sullivan in
Ireland South, who in fairness hung in there until the final counts. They must
have really been fearing an almost complete wipeout if they were happy to
return just 23 councillors, most of which were in Dublin, with a few scattered around
the country.
It may have
offered some assurance to TDs in Dublin that their political careers may not be
at an end just yet. After this result, there should be a handful of Green TDs
left in the Dublin area, but it is extremely doubtful that they will return any
TDs outside of the capital.
PBP – Like
the Green Party, apart from a couple of councillors, the vast majority of their
13 local representatives are in Dublin. Unlike the Green Party, they were
hoping to build in this election, not prevent losses. Apart from a good showing
by TD Bríd Smith in the Dublin constituency for the EU election, their
candidates in Midlands North West and South performed terribly. Despite previous
catchy slogans claiming to be the 99%, in MNW and South they were indeed in the
1%; polling 0.6% and 0.9% respectively. Their 5.7% in Dublin wasn’t enough to
push them up past 2% in a nationwide average.
It's hard to see
them changing tactics now, bread and butter issues never quite being their forte,
with mass-movements being a solution to quite a lot of basic problems.
Palestine seems to be the current priority for the party, as they now focus on
contesting two constituencies in the general election in the north next month,
where they also have seen a decline in recent years. They seem unphased by the
election, continuing business as usual regardless of the result, so maybe it
was neither a good nor a bad election for PBP.
Parties of
the Right – If these parties weren’t just little vanity projects, they might become
an emerging force in Irish politics. Bonus points if anyone can point out a
single difference between Ireland First and the Irish People. Four councillors
for a single party of the right would be far more notable than one for each of
the vanity projects, and no surprise it was those who couldn’t get enough of
the limelight who were elected.
Despite media
attention, and celebrations akin to Italia 90, there certainly wasn’t an actual
victory to be claimed. Though there was a decent performance, at least cumulatively
in each of the three constituencies. It’s worth keeping in mind that immigration,
a platform which these candidates were standing on, is actually a key issue of
the European Union, whereas local authorities have very minimal influence on immigration.
In Dublin,
recently elected independent councillor Malachy Steenson finished on over
11,000 votes, in South, Derek Blighe (Ireland First) hung on until the end and
accumulated over 38,000 votes, and in MNW Irish Freedom Party leader Hermann
Kelly finished up with over 21,000 votes. It was a little surprising that the
parties didn’t transfer better between each other, given their pretty identical
policies being spouted by different faces, but organisation and co-operation
seems to be a big problem among them.
Independent
Ireland – Whether they are a party or not a party is certainly up for debate,
but what’s not up for debate is their success in both the local and EU elections.
A good showing in Ireland South with their least known candidate, falling
behind just before crossing the finish line in Dublin, and after a tense battle
in MNW their first MEP in Ciarán Mulloolly, and electing 23 councillors was the
icing on the cake.
Granted many
of the councillors were re-elected, and had their own voting base before
running under the banner of this new party. One notable election was in my home
county of Limerick, where Cllr John O’Donoghue (brother of founder Richard),
and newcomer Tommy Hartigan comfortably saw off challenges from Sinn Féin and
Fine Gael to take two of the six seats available in the Adare-Rathkeale
constituency. In the constituencies where they ran new candidates they didn’t
perform too badly. Their biggest challenge in the future will be holding the
party together, and balancing that fine line of being both a party and
independent.
Independents –
Independent Ireland were certainly overshadowed by actual independents in this
election. This is the bad side of their election which I wasn’t sure whether to
include in the II section or IND section, so one follows the other. In Ireland South, Independent TD Michael
McNamara from Clare, totally eclipsed II candidate Eddie Punch, and while II secured
an MEP in MNW, Independent Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan was the far more popular
candidate. This was also the case in some constituencies around the country.
Independents are a broad spectrum around the country, ranging from
far-left to far-right. Many grease the parish pump well at election time, and
rank funerals as a higher priority than council meetings. Criticise it all you
want, it proves effective on polling day, especially in the local elections
where there is much more of a priority placed on candidates being local, going
for a few pints, showing up at funerals, and getting photos standing next to
potholes. This however usually doesn’t translate well enough by the time a
general election comes around, and may be one of the disadvantages that
independents face, while the co-ordination of Independent Ireland may prove
more advantageous in a national election, and indeed when it comes to forming
groups in the Dáil.
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