Another Election? To be sure, to be sure!

Only in Ireland would it happen that parties that win an election tell you that they don’t want to go into government.  One wonders what the men and women of 1916 would think ? In 1916 Irish men couldn’t elect their own government. Irish women of course were not allowed vote until 1918 and when they voted they spoke with a clear voice. 

100 years on those who lay claim most to the heritage of 1916 are first to tell the electorate the day after we’ve voted that they’re more interested in their parties and protecting their political position than the country they claim to love.  Today the centenary has become an embarrassing reminder of how the vision of the proclamation has been discarded in favour of political expediency and short term political advantage.

I’d an inkling what was about to happen yesterday at the count.  During a long conversation with a candidate whose posters called for transparency in government he told me he was opposed to his party entering government and that it was Fianna Fail and Fine Gaels job to govern.  The Social Democrats never told the electorate that on the doorsteps when they were collecting an impressive vote of over 2,000. 

You see this wasn’t a snap election, it’s been flagged for years.  Opinions have been well formed Suggestions now that we should have another in the next few months and that somehow there will be a different result with one party getting an overall majority are unrealistic.  This is the result whether we like it or not.  Fine Gael and Labour lost 50 seats.  An opinion poll showed 60% want a change of government.  In anyone’s language that means those who won have to form the government.  That’s how a democracy works.  It is time to give the people the change they want.

Anything else is farce and will rapidly wind up the electorate the wrong way.  The mistakes that undermined Labour in the last government were made before they entered office.  History is now repeating itself in the case of Fianna Fail, Sinn Fein, AAA and Social Democrats.

When you organise under the banner of Right to  Change you either keep that promise and deliver change or you let down people.  All these parties shared policies on water charges and property tax before the election. Why now are they finding even the thought of forming a government impossible? 

If 100 years ago a Scottish Socialist who didn't speak Irish could see common ground with a conservative Gaelgoir school teacher in developing a fledgling state, what's the real problem now

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Against the tide

One Summer’s evening in 1916, William Martin Murphy was sipping from a drink as he looked out over the 18^th hole of a South Dublin golf course.  Weeks before had seen the execution of James Connolly and the destruction of Liberty Hall by a gunboat. The ITGWU funds were down to about £8,000 and membership was in decline.  James Larkin was in exile in the US and the bosses had beaten the union in the lock out.  He could afford to smile as he remarked to one of his buddies; “Well that’s the last we’ll hear from the Labour Party”.

Nothing in politics is inevitable.  5 years ago the conventional wisdom was that Fianna Fail were heading for the knackers yard.  If you drove from Wexford to the border you could pass through just 3 constituencies where FF had Dail representatives. Make no mistake about it.  Today’s drubbing is not the end of Labour. An end of an era, yes but not the end of a party.  Labour retains the number of seats after a hammering that the Greens had when they entered office.

There appears to have been 2 elections.  One for government but another for opposition.  I’m amazed that so many on the left are not interested in forming a government despite a mandate.  What was the point in asking people to vote for you and telling people you’d represent them before an election and after the election turn around and say to the 2 main parties, work away? 

Be careful for what you wish for.  A grand coalition with grand ego’s?  No thanks!  There are 3 blocs. Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and Right to Change.  It’s clear that people don’t want either Labour or Fine Gael in office.  That’s the result of today’s verdict from the polls.  Enda Kenny will not hang in as Fine Gael party leader and Taosieach for too long more.  Fine Gael may justifiably replace him with Frances Fitzgerald and commence negotiations with Fianna Fail.  Michéal Martin has his own issues.  One wing of FF wants to embrace SF while the other wing prefers FG.  Frances Fitzgerald might be a more awkward and unpredictable customer for FF than Enda Kenny.  Gerry Adams will continue to dominate SF.  FF and FG backed themselves into corners on coalition.  Right to Change may horse trade with some independents and the trots to build up a bloc of TD’s that is greater than FF.   

I suspect that if the Dail refuses to elect a Taoiseach and the President is asked to dissolve and call elections that he will refuse unless it is clear that another election will produce a decisive result.  We’re heading for either a constitutional crisis or a democratic vacuum.  In that context which house of the Oireachtas has the greatest credibility?   

So where to now for Labour? The party may well be bloodied not beyond repair.  It’s back to the drawing boards and just as 100 years ago the Labour movement had to knuckle down and rebuild on the landscape it found itself on, so too will todays party.  Time to surprise the chattering classes in their golf clubs!

Confused by the polls? Take a chill pill

4 days left.  With the finishing line in sight. Some are already calling the result in Wexford; Browne, Byrne, Howlin, Kehoe and Wallace. That’s the result alphabetically, if you believe the polls! Lets get back to that later on.

Aoife Byrne from FF seems to be running a great campaign judging by her facebook and twitter feed. In a week when Deirdre Wadding quoted Father Ted, It seems Aoife herself had a Bishop Brennan moment when he gave her a blessing outside Wexford Park.  Unfortunately that spiritual fervour was absent from the pitch as Wexford came up short against Clare.  GAA stalwart and the man who delivered each pitch development in the county, Ger Carthy, or Mayor Ger Carthy as he now likes to be known on his posters, left the game as soon as it started.  Seems he had to rush to a nearby housing estate to move his van as the vehicle was causing a nuisance to local residents.  Good to see Cllr Fergie Kehoe back in action.  I was inclined to visit him in hospital but didn’t as I felt he wanted to get better!

It’s been a low key campaign in Wexford with few issues.  Mick Wallace has yet to visit many of the town’s doors.  The absence of any clear boundary on FG has seen FG candidates travel everywhere and yet nowhere.  Paul Kehoe and Michael D’arcy were both in Rosslare in the last few days and yet nobody from FG has been in my estate.  The absence of live issues may damage the chances of a minor candidate springing a surprise but it may also mean that national issues are more likely to dominate.  This plays into the hands of Wallace and the main political parties.  But it’s not all over, not by a long shot.

5 years ago in the presidential election at the same point Fianna Fail didn’t have the balls to officially run a candidate but hid behind someone who was, well, Fianna Fail to his fingertips.  He was ahead by a mile and thought that nothing could go wrong.  History tells us something else. Believe nothing until the votes are counted.

For the first 2 weeks of the campaign polls tell us there was little change in opinion. Now they tell us something different.  I’ve always put more trust on constituency polls than national polls.  When faced with a name there is often a sense of either a record or a geographical need for a TD.  People will vote for a name regardless of the party.

I head a story about one local woman who was read the poll options by phone from a UK based market research company who were outsourced the work from Ireland and they admitted Labour until the woman asked if Labour was an option? “Oh Yeah” was the response.

The only question is now what the turnout will be.  A high turnout will favour a change of government, a low turn out will favour Labour and Fine Gael.  While national polls on party support are unreliable, the most interesting figure of any poll I’ve seen is a poll from about 2 weeks ago where 60% said they want to see a change of government.  When 60% of people come to that conclusion it’s hard to argue.  The people always get what they want at election time, not necessarily what they need.

Many have remarked that this election is a lot like the 1980’s.  Certainly it is, but which part of the 1980’s is what I’d like to know? The early part with instability and 3 elections within 18 months or the later part with a Tallaght Strategy with FF & FG cosying up to impose fiscal rectitude when Labour won just 6.5% and 12 seats? After that came the coalition where FF ditched a core value, single party government.  So whose core value is facing the chop now? FG not accepting FF or FF not accepting SF?  Political heaves and intrigue were part and parcel of that power play.  We may be on the cusp of something dramatic.

For Enda Kenny or Michéal Martin something has to give.  My guess is that a battered FG will swop Kenny for Frances Fitzgerald who will do the deal that needs to be done with Michéal Martin who will face his own internal critics.  Remember he has never replaced his deputy leader who walked out the door as he was opposed to the Stability and Growth Pact.  O’Cuiv was, to quote PJ Mara, nibbling at the leaders bum. 

Labour will have a long look at itself and see where it wants to go in the future with a new leader while SF will ask themselves what went wrong once more.  They dropped by 10% in opinion polls in opposition. That mirrors Labour 6 years ago.  Will SF members give Gerry Adams his long service award and dispatch him back to his summer home in Donegal to write his memoires of the long war which he never took part in?

For Trotskyites, they’ve had an open goal to kick into for 8 years and still have not made the break through while a Healy Rae can pop up at a fortnights notice and win a seat in Kerry?  What does that say about the opposition and more importantly the voters? Once the ballots are counted, its then that the real questions will be asked. But will we get answers?

How many independents does it take to form a government?

No better time to discuss the role of independents in Wexford politics.  Tonight Wexford elected its first independent and rural based Mayor, Ger Carthy.  While later on the local independent TD, Mick Wallace was centre stage in a documentary about the role of independents in Irish politics.

Ballot papers in the US provide a space for a voter to write in the name of any other candidate.  Being an independent is easy.  As society becomes more complex and issues more interrelated, against a backdrop of 24 hour media, the simplistic notion of a single issue independent unfettered by political history sounds really attractive to the electorate.

In the last local election there were more non party candidates in Wexford than ever before but the number of independent councillors in the district is still the same as after the 2004 election. Independents perform extremely well in opinion polls.  But what does an independent candidate really stand for and is there a presumption on the part of electorate that they represent a type of politics that in practise independents don’t preach?  Last year one successful independent candidate in Wexford famously spelt the word "independent" wrong on his posters.  Presumably he hadn't spent much time thinking about the label! 

If a political party was to behave in that way, they’d be mince meat.  But an independent is never burdened by the need for consistency from a shifting electorate.  Some in small left wing parties like to represent themselves as independents.  Interestingly in opinion polls, their actual party labels score poorly.  In the recent Carlow Kilkenny bye election the Anti Austerity Alliance and Socialist Workers Party together won about the same number of 1^st preferences as Labour but transferred poorly and were eliminated early.

Implicit in Mayor Carthy’s speech is the suggestion that he will run in the General Election.  He said he proposed to be an active Mayor who will be calling to the doors of the district.  That’s more than a heavy hint with a General Election in the offing.  All politics is local but when you compare his set of priorities to those of Mick Wallace, 2 significant politicians couldn’t be further apart. 

Wallace’s publicity machine is relentless.  No need for clinics for the bankrupt developer who will pay off the taxman over the next 7 decades he spends in politics.  Mick rarely attends meetings in Wexford regarding local issues.  Most Wexford people are perplexed that he prefers the national limelight to Wexford.  Mick will hold his seat in the General Election next year, but will he still have 13,000 votes? I’m not so sure.

Let’s not confuse small left wing parties with Independents.  And here’s why. Because as the politics of austerity is consigned to the past when the economy grows, the small parties need to find new issues to campaign on.  I’ve listened to one local PBP councillor being introduced on local radio as an independent.  For a party that often protests, she was mute on this occasion.  Trotsky, however, would not have been pleased.  Small parties are not independents.  They resemble businesses that trade using different shelf companies.  Many small parties are clearly of  the  left, others like DDI or Renua are not.  But at least they can be placed on the political spectrum.

In reality most of Wexford’s Independent councillors are of the Fianna Fail gene pool.  They have little in common with Wallace or indeed Carthy whose father Leo was a long time independent councillor for almost 50 years. But for the independents of the Fianna Fail gene pool who are often rural based, the potholes, the footpaths, the road widening will be local issues for ever and a day.  Finding their niche on the right or left might be a tricky assignment as their political GPS tends to wander.

Where do independents stand on real issues when stripped down of the populism? Well your guess is as good as mine. During the Marriage Equality Referendum, no Wexford Independents were visible on the campaign. But what about the Repeal of the 8^th Amendment? Creating conditions for economic growth and employment?  Expanding education? Reforming the Health Service to deliver a better service? Europe? Because that is ultimately what impacts on ordinary peoples lives. Political parties, love them or hate them at least have joined up thinking in policy development. It is these differences that fuel political debate.

Where will whatever independents are elected in 2016 stand on these issues in 2021?  Let’s wait and see on this one.