Irish election thread

A thread for discussion of the Irish election, results from which should be through shortly. Commenter Oakeshott Country has passed on an exit poll which bears out expectations of an apocalyptic result for the ruling Fianna Fail party:

From Dublin:
An exit poll of 1200 nation wide – NOT RTE’s
Official Counting starts in 2 hours
Finn Gael – 29%
Labour – 22%
Sinn Fein – 15%
Fianna Fail – 11%
Ind – 10%
Green – 3%

The election is for Ireland’s lower house of parliament; its unelected upper house has only weak powers, similar to the House of Lords. Ireland’s head of state is an elected president whose functions are largely ceremonial – an election for this position will be held in October. The electoral system for Ireland’s lower house is similar to that for Australia’s Senate and most state upper houses. However, the country is broken up into regions which variously elect between three and five members, so while the system is a kind of proportional representation, it is difficult for small parties to win seats.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

149 comments on “Irish election thread”

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  1. The real big question for Europe is… Will they reject the EU bail out package aka Iceland and make them all take large hair cuts? Domino 1 as it were.

  4. Hmm. I think Psephos must be busy on other things. Nothing on his site about the election at all…

    But here’s what he has for the ’07 election. The GFC and its Irish aftermath has been a supercharge for lowly Irish Labour, and William is dead right about the fate of Fianna Fail.

    2007 Irish National Election
    Fianna Fail: 42.0
    Fine Gael: 27.4
    Green: 04.5
    Labour: 10.3
    Progressive Democrat: 02.8
    Sinn Fein: 07.1
    Independent: 05.9

  5. Unlike OC on the other thread, my guess would be that the exit poll is pretty much accurate. Nobody believed the Lib Dems would perform as weakly as the exit polls indicated they would in the British election – but they ended up proving spot on.

  8. I know that the differences between Fine Gael and Fianna Fail date back to the acceptance of the British Treaty in 1922 approx. But somebody may be able to tell us if there are substantial ideological differences or their approximate place on a left/ right spectrum.

    Not sure if it just me, but I always get the feeling that FF are sort of similar the NSW Labor right – matey, prone to a bit ot cronyism etc – is that a fair assumption?

  10. bbp – I think you are right about FF and the NSW Right – a perceived right to rule will do that to you

    FF and FG are both Centre Right but FG is slightly more right – their nickname (blue shirts) dates from when they absorbed the Irish Fascists in the 1930s. FF, in line with its origin, is slightly more republican.

    re the EU bailout – my understanding is that only SF proposes its winding back – and there chances of being included in government are minimal.

  17. No idea about the exit poll in the post not adding up to 100 – but surely 10 per cent might be others. In any case, I just cut and pasted it from Oakeshott Country’s comment on the other thread.

  18. RTE’s last exit poll got within 1% of the final results last time. The two exit polls give the same FG/Labour coalition but are remarkably different in %. We will see
    RTE report FF got 8% in Dublin.

  20. Blackburnpseph and Oakshott – Fianna Fail has a reputation for being the more ‘left’ of the two main parties largely because it took the stronger anti-imperialist stance over the 1922 treaty. I think it is best seen as like ‘the DLP with rifles’. It combined a blood and soil reverence for the imagined Gaelic past with a vision of good Catholic yeomen tilling the soil freed from British oppression. Naturally the actual record of FF in government hasn’t followed these beliefs for years.

    Social democracy in Ireland actually found a more congenial political home in Fine Gael. In the 1960s FG gained a social democratic wing and became quite trendy. Led by Garrett Fitzgerald in the 1970s and 1980s they even gained an endorsement from U2 in the early 1980s.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Fine_Gael#The_Just_Society_and_Tom_O.27Higgins

  25. CiaranDelargy FF run less candidates than ever; Still looks like too many- watch the split votes cost seats, even where FF got a half decent vote #ge11 46 seconds ago · reply

  28. Rod in a nutshell:

    silveryd44 RT @charliekranz: Uninstalling Fianna Fail / Greens ???????????????: In Progress. Installing Labour / Fianna Gael ????????????????: In Progress. #ge11 46 seconds ago · reply

  29. If it is possible to reduce such things to such terms for a complete ignoramus about Irish politics, is this a win for the right, the left, someone else altogether, or no-one in particular?

  31. A word on Irish parties:

    Fianna Fail (Soldiers of Destiny) is historically an Irish nationalist party, descended from the original Sinn Fein which led the fight for Irish independence and then for an Irish republic, and opposed the Irish Free State in 1922. In recent times it has moved to the left in the sense that it’s become the party of state spending and high welfare, while remaining conservative on social issues. It might be compared to the DLP. In office for decades it has become lazy and corrupt.

    Fine Gael (Sons of Ireland) is a mainstream conservative party, descended from those who supported the Irish Free State within the Commonwealth as a compromise solution to the Irish civil war in 1922. It is Thatcherite in economcs but rather more liberal than FF in social policy. It forms coalitions of convenience with Labour because that’s the only way to form a non-FF government.

  34. Irish Labour is a moderate social demographic party, based on the trade unions. It agrees with FF on welfarism but with FG on social policy. But demographically Ireland is very poor territory for a labour party, so it has always been a third party (until tonight anyway). Labour competes for the “left” vote, such as it is, with Sinn Fein and the Greens.

  38. The result so far seems to be FG 36% + Labour 20% = a majority coalition government. The opposition will be FF 15%, SF 10%, Greens 3%. The correlation between votes and seats is not always exact however.

  42. Thanks, Charlotte. I was overseas all of January and have been extremely busy since, which is why my website hasn’t been touched since before Xmas, in case anyone was wondering. I’m hoping to get back to it soon. I’ve also taken a vow of abstinence from comment here on federal politics, for reasons some of you will know.

  46. 42

    It is looking like not only an interesting Irish Election for you to display the results of on your website but also a number of interesting elections in the Middle East.

  47. cdasilva RT @datbeardyman: Look out for #kys and #kynwl Kerry may be (official) FF free for the first time since Independence. The Healy-Rae may be gone too 🙂 #ge11 30 seconds ago · reply

  49. I hope Psephos starts commenting on federal politics again when Lee Rhiannon becomes a Senator. It’s gonna be hillarious watching her try to single handedly revive the discredited ideology of socialism.

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