Ireland votes & turns left

[MajorMitchell]

Sinn Fein surges in the recent election in Ireland. What does it mean ?

[Octavious]

It means that some people will eventually get so tired of not being given a real choice that they will resort to voting for terrorist scum.

[MajorMitchell]

Are you suggesting Octavious our Oracular Octopus that Sinn Fein only received support because the two regular parties have been such dismal failures that people simply gave up on them ? If that's the case then don't the politicians in those regular parties deserve to be repudiated by voters?
Why should failure be rewarded ?
The way it was reported in Australia was that the regular parties had failed to deliver on social services and that people were tired of struggling with low wages growth and higher living costs.

[Randomizer]

People will vote for a change in leadership no matter if the new leaders will cause them more problems. Trump was elected in the US and he still has strong support from farmers going into bankruptcies over his Trade Wars.

[Octavious]

Who suggested failure should be rewarded? I have no favourites in Irish politics, where the centre right have been poor and complacent for decades, and the centre left have been painfully feeble. The Greens have crawled forward a little because they have become fashionable, and Sinn Fein have risen to ascendancy (well... quite a low ascendancy in the grand scheme of things, but still better than the others) because in the village of the blind the one eyed man is king. Even if he is a raving lunatic bastard.

[taylor4]

One early report was that Low Turnout at the polls was due in part to the International Rugby tourney on telly

[flash2015]

One early report was that Low Turnout at the polls was due in part to the International Rugby tourney on telly

#priorities

[Octavious]

One early report was that Low Turnout at the polls was due in part to the International Rugby tourney on telly

#priorities

Aye, you can't fault Ireland there. They've got their priorities spot on. The big game of the tournament comes in two weeks. If Ireland can beat England in London they're odds on for the grand slam. Easier said than done, though.

[orathaic]

Given that there are two centre right parties to choose from, and they have basically swapped who was in government for 100 years, this is pretty historic.

Most SF voters did not do so because they think SF are terrorists (besides SF are the 2nd largest party in Northern Ireland where most of the so-called terrorism occurred, so if they are acceptable there, what harm?). I did not vote for SF, at least not in my top 5 (also, horray for PRSTV).

The SF swing is about 24% not enough seats to form a SF government. The two centre right parties, ~21% and 23% have for the first time in the history of this country failed to achieve more than 50% (usually one or the other would have gotten a majority, except in 2016, which was the first time neither of them could form a majority government).

Noteably, the transfer system shows SF voters largely supported the PBP-Solidarity alliance as their second choice (formerly know as the Socialist party and the Socialist workers party...) this is a shift in voting patterns on the left away from the Labour Party.

Labour, the Social Democrats and the Greens were all transfer friendly. (with 6, 6 and 1w seats between them).

Looking at the polling, it is evident who voted for SF. Because we have broken down population s by economic class, we can tell F1/F2 (large and small farmers) largely voted for FF (centre right, 38 seats, down from 40 something seats last election). AB class (wealthy, Upper management, etc.) largely voted for FG (centre right, 35 seats, down from largest party and minority government), C1 class (upper middle) were most divided, with SF, and the Greens getting a large party of their vote, but also, FF, FG and independents. C2, DE (lower middle and working class) largely voted for SF (and transfers to the hard left) (37 seats, up significantly from the previous Dáil).

So it isn't particularly accurate to say Irish people voted for SF. 24% did, in varying amount across the country. In my constituency the green party candidate topped the poll. But in most areas the SF candidate got elected (and often helped drag a far left candidate across the line aswell). Labour did very badly, formerly the 3rd largest party; the Social Democrats did comparatively well, being a new party and winning some of the middle class Labour votes... So SF now basically represent the left, and are struggling to form any coalition government.

It looks like we might have a FF/FG (centre right) coalition. But even together they lack the seats for a majority... Maybe with the rural independents...

[MajorMitchell]

Thanks Orathaic, that was an interesting read. Much appreciated.

[orathaic]

* that should be 6, 6 and 12 seats (Lab, SD, Green).

Collectively they might be called the moderate/centre left. (24 seats).
Contrasted with SF/PBP-Sol (42 seats) hard left/popular left
FF popular right (38 seats)
FG centre right (35 seats)

None of these groups can find the 80 seats required for a majority.

[orathaic]

I have left out the smaller groupings, Rural independents seem to be forming a technical group for the purposes of speaking rights in Parliamentń not sure how many independents are signing up, but I think they need at least 6 seats before getting any time.

1 anti-choice Splitter from SF formed a new party and while he kept his seat, his party got 0 other seats.
The other anti-choice FG split failed to secure any seats.
The far left faction split from PBP-Sol got 1 seat under the independents 4 Change banner, (down from 4, as they have 2 people elected to the European Parliament last year).

Most other independents are former FF or FG members, which could give them the edge in any government negotiations.

[Hellenic Riot]

It should be pointed out that had Sinn Fein not made the tactically idiotic decision to only run 42 candidates because they were polling so poorly prior to the election campaign, when you need at least 80 for a majority, they would have in fact garnered significantly more seats than they actually ended up getting.

Estimations accounting for this seem to put them comfortably at 50 odd seats, mostly at the expense of the centre left parties (the Greens, Soc Dems, and Labour) but also a couple at the expense of Fianna Fail and some of the centre-right independents. And that's even without the point that people were fully aware of Sinn Fein's candidate shortage during the campaign and potentially changed their preferences as a result.

So if this does indeed go to a second election, and Sinn Fein almost certainly won't be stupid enough to make the same mistake twice, they could garner significantly more seats even with a relatively stable share of the vote - Making a Sinn Fein led government far more plausible to imagine.

Of course, the alternative is for Fianna Fail and Fine Gael to go into coalition together (and still need the help of some of the independents), which would then leave Sinn Fein as essentially the entire opposition - which would probably mean Sinn Fein won a far larger majority next time around. Interesting times in Ireland, that's for sure.

[orathaic]

Actually, it looks like the top transfers from SF were (in order) PBP-Sol (hard left), independents (who knows), FF (centre right) bring a total of just over 50%.
Followed by the centre left (Green Party, Labour, Social Democrats) ~20%.

More transfer to just the hard left, or the center right than to the center left. (see: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... E/htmlview)

[orathaic]

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/02/14/ir ... -populism/