I Can Predict Everything Except the Future

Scanning the political horizon as 2019 rolled into 2020, that there would be an election seemed a virtual certainty. Less certain but widely expected, based on the trend of opinion polls, was an outcome similar to the 2016 election, a minority government led by either Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael with the betting slightly favouring the former.

Sinn Féin was mentioned “in dispatches” but more for courtesy and completeness than in the expectation that they would be at the centre of things. My own new year assessment on this blog was an attempt to play it safe that hasn’t worn very well:

Nothing is impossible and Sinn Féin may sometime have genuine aspirations to lead a government if not achieve an overall majority of seats, but that is certainly not a prospect for the forthcoming election.

But this sharper, gloomier view by Pat Leahy in The Irish Times of 4 January was probably more representative of “expert” opinion:

Sinn Féin received a major boost in two recent elections, winning a byelection in Dublin Mid-West and taking Nigel Dodds’s seat in North Belfast in the British general election. But the party’s vote slumped across Northern Ireland, and both these polls and the May local elections in the South suggest the party is in for a difficult election. The election will be about minimising losses.

Mary Lou McDonald has to face political headwinds in a way that Gerry Adams — during his period in southern politics anyway — did not have to. McDonald has a desire and a rationale for government but no apparent route to it. She faces falling poll numbers, a jumpy organisation and a sceptical public. How she responds — and how the electorate responds to her — will decide the immediate future for Sinn Féin.

The Dáil was dissolved on 14 January. The following day, The Irish Times’ political correspondent, Harry McGee published initial predictions about where the seats might fall in the election offering a range depending on whether the party concerned had a bad or a good election day. Fianna Fáil had their noses in front with a range of 45–58. Fine Gael was at 45–57. But Sinn Féin was going to lose seats. From 22 at the dissolution of the Dáil, the party could expect to win 14–20 according to Mr. McGee.

The first post-dissolution opinion poll, for The Sunday Times, suggested the winds of change were blowing in other parties’ sails; giving Fianna Fáil 32%, Fine Gael 20% and Sinn Féin 19%. Midway through the campaign with voting only a fortnight away, The Irish Mail on Sunday poll completed on 25 January conveyed a broadly similar picture: Fianna Fáil 27%, Fine Gael 22% and Sinn Féin 20%. But, in The Sunday Business Post poll a week later, Sinn Féin had moved up to 24% alongside Fianna Fáil with Fine Gael languishing in third on 21%. The polls of the final week had Sinn Féin leading on their own with percentages for all parties moving closer to the eventual outcome.

However, “expert” opinion remained a prisoner of its preconceptions. In his final predictions three days before the election, Harry McGee saw Fianna Fáil hitting 53 seats, Fine Gael 38 and Sinn Féin 28. The previous evening Mary Lou McDonald had “stumbled” in the tripartite television debate, trapped by Miriam O’Callaghan’s uncovering comments by her colleague Conor Murphy about Paul Quinn which Ms. McDonald had denied ever having been made. The whiff of gunsmoke around the party implied by the resurfacing of the Quinn murder featured prominently without dominating coverage in the final days, fuelling speculation that the party’s advance might have stalled if not reversed.

Harry McGee’s assessment was probably conventional “wisdom”:

There would have been a drop in any instance, in my view, because some would have had second thoughts about making such a big leap. But the debate may lead to the drop being more pronounced.

Of course, the election over, correspondents are queueing up to “explain” as foreseeable what they did not foresee, even as it approached with the speed and noise of an approaching train.

Fiach Kelly stepped into the breach for The Irish Times on 10 February.

The party’s review of its poor performance in last summer’s local and European elections was important in setting a new course, “striking a better balance between promoting its own policies and criticising the government” (although Kelly doesn’t say in which direction the balance shifted), bringing key front bench spokespeople (Louise O’Reilly, Eoin O’Broin and Pearse Doherty) “to the fore” and raising their game on the “bread and butter” of constituency services.

In early January, his colleague, Pat Leahy had seen them as in for a tough election despite the by-election win in November. Now, though, this by-election outcome was a sign of improving fortunes.

Confidence was returning, even if the expectation within the party was still that this general election would be about consolidating rather than expanding its Dáil numbers.”

“Consolidating” is a convenient word, vague enough to leave open the possibility of losing as much as gaining a few seats, thus being loosely consistent with Pat Leahy’s judgement in January.

And “Sinn Féin ran the best campaign.” Mary Lou McDonald had emerged as a political Midas, her every touch turning its object into gold. For example, the leaders’ debate (on which she “forced” RTÉ to change its mind about her participation):

Even though her performance in that debate was poor, party figures said her mere presence on the RTÉ set was enough. It said Sinn Féin was now on a par with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.

The benediction of Ms. McDonald picks up pace and intensity:

McDonald herself was the star of the campaign, and her repeated attacks on Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael for, as she claimed, being in power together for four years were brutally effective.

McDonald herself was a hit on the canvass. In person, the Dublin Central TD is warm, personable and approachable….

…her stump appearances showed her warmth and ease with people.

Does the crowing cock cause the sun to rise or the other way around. Was it Mary Lou’s brilliant campaign that triggered the Sinn Féin “tsunami” or was it the tsunami that framed subsequent perceptions of the campaign?

Let’s go back to those local and European elections last May which followed a lacklustre performance by Sinn Féin in the Presidential election of October 2018. Three days afterwards with the results settled, the headline over Pat Leahy’s “analysis” read: “McDonald faces some tough questions after her party suffers a bruising election”. The article opens like this:

Even very early on in the count, it was shaping up to be a very difficult weekend for Sinn Féin and its leader who now faces her second disaster — two out of two — in her second major election in the Republic.

And after detailing the extent of the disaster, it concludes ominously: “Some hard thinking and hard choices await her.” A few days later with the dust fully settled, under the heading “Sinn Féin is in a bit of a crisis”, Mr. Leahy offers this as one of 10 lessons from those elections:

For no party is the post mortem as important as Sinn Féin. The party is actually in the midst of three crises — of leadership, of strategy and of morale. The reflex response — hunker down and work hard — is necessary, but certainly not sufficient.

At that point, Ms. McDonald’s now apparently obvious tactical acumen and personal empathy remained entirely undiscovered.

After this month’s election, Ms. McDonald suggested Sinn Féin’s support had been building for some time rather than coming in a rush in the month of the campaign. It didn’t surface earlier, she suggested, because voters are less bothered by secondary contests like Europe, the locals and the Presidency which are comparatively inconsequential to their daily lives, but take the process of selecting their government seriously.

I don’t find that altogether convincing. True, Sinn Féin support was running at the higher end of the 15–20% range in the polls between the 2016 election and last May when it secured 11.7% and 9.5% respectively in the European and local elections. So, those elections may have understated the size of its potential “base”. But I’m not sure why. Voters may not be too bothered about the eventual outcome, but it is easier for them to give free rein to their feelings in those lesser contests precisely because they are inconsequential. They offer only an opportunity to voice an opinion without any associated responsibility.

Support crept back above 15% only towards the end of last year before shooting above 24% by early February.

The big questions for me are whether Sinn Féin made the wave since the election was called or simply surfed it and, to the extent that they did either effectively, was this by design or accident. The journalists aren’t offering analysis — yet at any rate, only retrospective determinism.

But this much is clear. Though the first campaign poll suggested that Fianna Fáil had tapped best into the mood for change, Sinn Féin managed to yank that ball away from them with all the skill of CJ Stander or Peter O’Mahony asserting themselves in the ruck.

Having scored a wonder try in the election, Sinn Féin are still in possession of the ball. What will they do with it next?