Victims of their own pragmatism
Sinn Féin surprised everyone during Ireland’s election campaign, rising to the top of the polls and winning its chief a seat in the major debates alongside premier Leo Varadkar and opposition leader Micheál Martin. They even managed to surprise themselves, the party failed to nominate enough candidates at the start of the campaign to match their king tide support at the end of it.
It’s fair to say Sinn Féin haven’t had an easy few years. After the death of Martin McGuinness and the departure of Gerry Adams (its two leaders for decades), the radical left-wing party long associated with the IRA and the united Ireland concept have suffered in the polls.
Mary Lou McDonald succeeded Adams in February 2018 and has since endured bad numbers and results. In the 2019 European Elections Sinn Féin lost two seats and in the Republic’s local elections the same year the party lost more than half its councillors nationally.
But after Taoiseach (Ireland’s PM) Leo Varadkar called an election in January for February 8, Sinn Féin quickly made up ground in the opinion polls.
Ireland’s political system is unique. It has many features of the Westminster system but with multi-member constituencies. It has two major parties (Varadkar’s Fine Gael and Micheál Martin’s Fianna Fáil) but both of them are centre-right wing with their governments characterised by which of the smaller left wing parties they choose to form coalitions with.
Varadkar’s Fine Gael led Government has been seen by many internationally as shoo-ins for re-election. The Taoiseach has presided over a strong economy, won modernising referendums, and has perceived to have been successful in defending the country against the terrors of Brexit. Varadkar has become the poster boy for the new Ireland, he is a former doctor, the son of immigrants, and openly gay.
But Fine Gael’s critics have pointed to a lack of affordable housing and the construction of a major hospital plagued with controversy as evidence for a needed change.
Though Martin has been persistent in his criticism of the government, he has also provided it with the votes to pass several budgets. Sinn Féin call this proof that Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are two sides of the same coin. Both parties have been maligned by voters after a recent decision to raise the pension age from 65 to 67.
McDonald and Sinn Féin have pledged to build 100,000 houses and to stop the pension age from raising. Their unapologetically left wing manifesto appears to be a gamble that has paid off, the exit poll has them tied with Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil at 22% of the vote each.
Sinn Féin’s sudden popularity contrasts recent events in the neighbouring United Kingdom, where Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party suffered a humiliating defeat after taking similar policies to the electorate. And after Brexit, the Irish appear to be warming to a party that unashamedly thinks Northern Ireland should be part of the Republic of Ireland (not the UK) sooner rather than later.
The exit poll has not been kind to Ireland’s previous third party, Labour, which came away with just 4.6% nationally. The Greens on the other hand rose to 7.9%.
To form government, a party or coalition needs 80 seats. Sinn Féin chose to run for just 42. If you take a constituency like Dublin Central where the party only nominated one person, recent polls have it winning enough votes to secure at least two of the four seats on offer.
This means that other parties will get elected in key constituencies off the back of Sinn Féin preferences.
They have chosen not to run second and third candidates who could’ve won, because they feared a low vote which can lead to the party’s preferred candidate not getting up. Sinn Féin are victims of their own pragmatism.
They’re not the only ones. Fianna Fáil’s choice to grant confidence and supply appears to have been costly. As has Fine Gael’s decision to call an election only after its winning issue (Brexit) was perceived to have been settled.
The Irish expression Tiocfaidh ár lá (our day will come) is one used often by supporters of a united Ireland. If Sinn Féin’s day is to come, it will need to start nominating more candidates.
