Irish political sweepstakes 2021
In 2020, 26 December, Saint Stephen’s Day, fell on a Saturday. The daily papers in Ireland appeared as usual, but their thin fresh content heavily padded out with reflections on the year cooked long before Christmas. The Irish Times devoted a full page to something awkwardly titled: “The year in people” with the sub-heading: “Who had a good one? Who didn’t?”
I was surprised to see Mary Lou McDonald included among those alleged to have had a bad year.
The explanation reflected the keyboard begrudger mindset that there is always a greater moan to be extracted from the jaws of any cause for cheer. Another example related to the supply of COVID vaccinations that arrived in Ireland the same day. On social media, the good news that vaccine doses had arrived here far earlier than anyone might have predicted a few months ago was drowned out by the alleged scandal that vaccination itself would only begin a few days later.
Anyway, back to Mary Lou. According to the anonymous journalist:
In 2020, the Sinn Féin leader guided the party another step closer to its long-term objective of usurping Fianna Fáil and taking power in the Republic. In the short term, however, it might be recorded as a missed opportunity. If the party had run more than just 42 candidates in February’s election, Mary Lou would be Taoiseach already — and the other parties, especially Fine Gael, wouldn’t have recovered the ground they did through their (mostly) competent handling of the crisis caused by the Covid pandemic.
If you wanted evidence of the wisdom of patiently engaging your brain before hammering your keyboard, this is it.
First, Sinn Féin certainly wants to “take power in the Republic.” But, suggesting that it feels the need to “usurp Fianna Fáil” in particular to do so is lagging a decade behind the curve of political events and realities. Fianna Fáil’s historic hegemony — the largest party in the state since 1932 and in government alone or as the major coalition party for 60 years of the following 8 decades — was smashed to smithereens at the 2011 general election.
Second, characterising the result of last year’s election as a missed opportunity rather than an outstanding success for Sinn Féin allows a few bedraggled trees to obscure a thriving wood. Sinn Féin won the largest vote share; 24.5%, up from 13.8% in 2016 and 37 seats compared to 23. That the same newspaper’s political correspondents predicted seat losses rather than gains for Sinn Féin at the start of the election campaign amplifies their success.
Third and most important though is the blithe assertion that, if Sinn Féin had run more candidates, “Mary Lou would be Taoiseach already”. The top three parties emerged from the election clustered closely in terms of both votes and seats:
Sinn Féin: 24.53% (votes), 37 seats (expected seats relative to vote share: 40)
Fianna Fáil: 22.18% (38)(35)
Fine Gael: 20.86% (35)(33)
So, while Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil eked out more seats than their proportion of the votes warranted, Sinn Féin emerged with less. But how many more might they have won?
There was only one constituency (Cork North-West) in which Sinn Féin did not run any candidate at all. It’s a 3-seater so it was possible rather than certain that a candidate for the party would have won a seat there. Sinn Féin certainly “left seats behind them”; maybe 3 in Dublin and one in Waterford where their sole candidates achieved around two quotas. But it should also be recalled that there were five constituencies in which the sole Sinn Féin candidate missed out. So, the “landslide” did not hoover all before it. Sinn Féin’s seat return was indeed an underperformance relative to its vote share, but not a huge one. It should certainly have won more, indeed most seats, but not by much.
Even allowing a generous projection of, say, 42–44 seats, it would still have been close to impossible for Sinn Féin to engineer a government led by it without the participation of either Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael. The Dáil arithmetic simply doesn’t stack up.
Looking forward, Paddy Power is offering odds of 15/8 against an election in 2021. But the odds lengthen significantly to 6/1 and 7/1 against an election in 2022 and 2023 respectively, tightening to 4/1 for 2024. That seems reasonable to me. If the Government can bed down well enough to ride out the current year, it should be safe enough to be able to survive for the following three. Whether it will survive is another matter. Destabilising events and catastrophes can come out of the blue at any time. But we can forecast only on the basis of what we know now.
The bookie’s assessment of how the next election might go is not surprising either. It is offering Evens on Sinn Féin winning most seats with Fine Gael at 6/4 and Fianna Fáil at 4/1. Those odds are compatible with the recent trend of opinion polls.
Sinn Féin enjoyed a brief honeymoon in the polls after the general election. For the following month, it led the polls with ratings around 35%. Then the pandemic rode to the rescue of the caretaker government led by Leo Varadkar. Fine Gael experienced a halo effect that continued beyond the formation of the present government in June, basking in first place with poll ratings around the mid-thirties through November. December’s polls became less clear cut with Fine Gael and Sinn Féin jostling for top spot and suggesting some recovery for Fianna Fáil after a disappointing election campaign and an even more miserable post-election period in which its ratings languished in the low to mid-teens. But it remains firmly in third place.
Paddy Power’s website is not offering odds regarding the make-up of the next government. That seems to me also to be wise. There are too many “unknowns”. But there are some likelihoods.
First, it seems likely that each of Sinn Féin, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael will present themselves to the electorate as candidate parties to lead the next government — rather than attempting to pre-cook or lock-in enough committed support from elsewhere before the election to offer the electorate a candidate government.
So, voters will not be voting on their choice of government as such but about what parties and candidates they would most like to be present in the Dáil — and leaving it to the Dáil to establish the government.
Second, it is hard to see any next government containing only one of Sinn Féin, Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael.
Third, it is hard also to see Fianna Fáil and possibly also Fine Gael ruling out as definitively as they did last time any participation in government with Sinn Féin.
Fourth, it seems likely that Sinn Féin will increase its vote and seats. The party certainly has “baggage”, but it is neatly placed in the electoral marketplace. It is becoming more and more mainstream while remaining radical enough and green enough to be a “catch many” if not the “catch all” party, Fianna Fáil used to be. It has effectively taken over the soft left segment and much of the hard left too, and its mix of professed radicalism and nationalism has eaten away at Fianna Fáil.
The results of the last election created a platform from which to project itself as a leader-in-waiting of the next government, not just a participant and certainly not just a party of protest. It retains the “whiter than white” purity of not being implicated in government before and it is beefing up its credentials for competence to reduce the perception of risk around ushering it into government now.
Fifth, as Paddy Power’s betting odds and opinion polls suggest, Fine Gael seems likely to emerge stronger than Fianna Fáil on the “not Sinn Féin” side of the spectrum. Both “civil war” parties have become progressively more indistinguishable by being loosely associated in the last “confidence and supply” government and now in government together. Neither can present themselves as the antithesis of the other. Being better for being “slightly different” is not a description to set voters’ pulses racing.
Fine Gael has positioned itself better if somewhat crudely as the antithesis to Sinn Féin. They still have “money in the bank” from the early months of the pandemic and their ministerial responsibilities offer the prospect of calmer seas than those of their Fianna Fáil counterparts. The long months of caretaking saved the Blueshirts after a disastrous election.
Fianna Fáil remains adrift, rudderless and directionless. Leadership of the present government seems so far to have had a neutral effect on their standing. 2011 saw them lose the imperial franchise of being the only majoritarian party in the state, the “natural” party of government. They have yet to find an alternative role other than being “responsible” and “not Sinn Féin”. They face a dilemma over when and how to change leadership when Michael Martin’s tenure as Taoiseach ends in 18 months.
He should resign immediately afterwards. But will he? And, if he does, the bookies’ favourites to replace him: Jim O’Callaghan at 2/1 and Michael McGrath at 9/4, are cut from the same worthy but dull cloth.
The larger dilemma is how to position the party in relation to Sinn Féin. The “blanket” refusal to countenance government with Sinn Féin did not serve them well in the last election. But leaving the door even a little ajar positions the party as the meat in the sandwich between the more “ultra” Fine Gael and Sinn Féin.
Elsewhere, it seems more likely that the Greens will lose some of their 12 seats than gain more, simply because participation in the outgoing government almost always places smaller parties at an electoral disadvantage. However, if the Greens somehow gain votes and seats, it will be proof positive that climate change has become a hard mainstream political issue, not just a soft political fashion accessory.
Labour and the Social Democrats are currently level on 6 seats each. They both occupy much the same political “space”. Paddy Power offers odds of 60/1 and 100/1 respectively against either winning the most seats next time which sounds to me like a vague proxy for the belief that Labour will remain at least equal with its immediate rivals. If they don’t coalesce beforehand, my hunch is that the brighter, shinier Social Democrats may move ahead of Labour.
National support for the micro-parties of the “hard” left is already only a polling “margin of error”. It is hard to see the needle moving much either way. They are pinned down by their narrow urban voting base, much of which is already occupied by Sinn Féin tanks and their inability to establish a coherent joint platform because individual egos take precedence over ideals.
If indeed the next election is not a direct contest between competing candidate governments, but a beauty contest between parties and motley individuals, the proliferation of independent TDs, both party gene pool and those identified primarily with a single cause, will continue.
Last speculative likelihood is that the skies will be very different this time next year, but not necessarily clearer. We should have the pandemic under control and be on a smooth, short and firm path to approximate normality in everyday living, if not already there. But there will be a lot of IOUs in the drawer, a lot of tidying up to be done and a public mood tempered as much by tetchy tiredness as robust relief. The political agenda should be dominated by management of peace rather than war. There is no guarantee that the former task will be any easier or less fractious. The retreat of the common enemy that is the virus will free us up to resume bare knuckle political squabbling among ourselves.
