I’m busy with other projects this week, but time for a quick look at Ireland’s presidential election, held last Friday. The result wasn’t entirely unexpected, but all the same it’s a blow to the government of prime minister Micheál Martin.
The government is a coalition between the two historic main parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. At last November’s election they won 42.7% of the vote between them and 86 of the 174 seats. After winning over a group of seven independents to give them a majority, they formed government with Martin as prime minister, on a promise that Fine Gael leader Simon Harris would take over in the third year.
Ireland’s presidency is a Westminster-style figurehead, directly elected by a preferential vote for a term of seven years. Incumbent Michael Higgins is retiring after the maximum two terms, and three candidates nominated to replace him: Fine Gael put up its former deputy leader, Heather Humphreys; Fianna Fáil nominated a star Gaelic footballer and manager, Jim Gavin; and the opposition parties, including Sinn Féin, rallied around independent left-wing candidate Catherine Connolly.
Since the government parties are trailing in the polls, and since Higgins was originally elected from the left against the major parties, it wasn’t hard to predict that voters would opt for the independent – even though Connolly was carrying a lot of baggage, including a tendency to repeat Vladimir Putin’s talking points. The contest was sharpened three weeks ago when Gavin withdrew after controversy over an old debt to a tenant, leaving only two candidates.
Sure enough, Connolly prevailed with a record 63.4% of the vote, almost 490,000 votes ahead of Humphreys on 29.5%. (See official results here.) Gavin, who was still on the ballot, picked up 7.2%. Turnout was 45.8%, up slightly on 2018, but 12.9% of those voted informal: also a record, and in part a reaction to the failure of hard-right candidate Maria Steen to qualify for the ballot.
So while the defeat was fully expected, the size of it will still be a shock to the government. It’s still early days for it, with four years to go the next election, but now it will not only have a loose cannon of a president to deal with, but also be left in no doubt about the public’s dissatisfaction with the political establishment.
The World is Not Enough 