[Peace-discuss] Sinn Fein on Threshold: Party With Old I.R.A. Ties Soars in Irish Election

Mon Feb 10 14:15:00 UTC 2020

Typical NY Times propaganda spin but if you read between the lines, some
interesting info.

Sinn Fein on Threshold: Party With Old I.R.A. Ties Soars in Irish Election

Once ostracized over its ties to sectarian violence, Sinn Fein may now be
able to claim a seat at the government table.

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/02/09/world/09ireland-election-sub/09ir
eland-election-sub-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale

Thomas Gould, a Sinn Fein candidate in Cork, celebrating with supporters
after the voting results.Credit...Henry Nicholls/Reuters

By  <https://www.nytimes.com/by/benjamin-mueller> Benjamin Mueller

*	Feb. 9, 2020

.          

.  DUBLIN - Sinn Fein, a leftist party long ostracized from Irish politics
over its ties to sectarian violence, won the popular vote and seized its
largest-ever share of parliamentary seats in the country's national
elections this weekend, according to results released on Sunday.

The vote loosened a 90-year stranglehold on power by two center-right
parties in Ireland and put Sinn Fein on the doorstep of joining a coalition
government, a remarkable rebuke to a political establishment that tried to
paint it as aberrant and unelectable throughout the campaign.

Defying a reputation for extreme risk aversion, Irish voters ignored those
warnings.

They gave Sinn Fein more votes than Ireland's prime minister,
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/06/world/europe/ireland-election-varadkar.h
tml> Leo Varadkar, in his Dublin district, though Ireland's system of vote
allocation allowed Mr. Varadkar to hold onto his parliamentary seat.

Irish voters delivered more votes to left-wing parties than they had in
decades, realigning a center-heavy political system along class and
ideological lines.

And they signaled that, more than a decade after the financial crash of
2008, the aftershocks of that event were still being felt, with voters
punishing Ireland's big party machines for adopting years of austerity and
unapologetically business-friendly policies.

"This is changing the shape and mold of Irish politics,"
<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/10/world/europe/sinn-fein-mary-lou-mcdonald
-gerry-adams.html> Mary Lou McDonald, the leader of Sinn Fein, told a crush
of reporters at a Dublin convention center on Sunday. "This is not a
transient thing - this is just the beginning."

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/02/09/world/09ireland-election2/merlin_
168636804_73663e28-5f6e-4c0d-94a7-113f787a94af-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&a
uto=webp&disable=upscale

ImageThe Sinn Fein leader, Mary Lou McDonald, arriving at a counting center
in Dublin.

The Sinn Fein leader, Mary Lou McDonald, arriving at a counting center in
Dublin.Credit...Aidan Crawley/EPA, via Shutterstock

The voting results were preliminary, with about a third of the seats
allocated. The final results are expected on Monday or Tuesday.

Sinn Fein used to be the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, which
fought for Irish unity during the decades-long sectarian conflict known as
the Troubles.

But those ties have faded from memory for many younger voters. And,
especially in this campaign, the party made opposition to soaring rental
prices and corporate tax breaks the centerpiece of its campaign, using its
long history of organizing and activism to present itself as the only party
in touch with people's day-to-day grievances.

Mr. Varadkar, for his part, was celebrated abroad for his success in
negotiating a Brexit deal with Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain that
averted some of the most painful fallout of Britain's split with the
European Union. But at home he was facing growing anger over mounting health
care costs and a housing shortage that has driven up rents and forced some
young people to consider leaving the country.

The results were sobering for the duopoly that has long controlled Irish
politics: Fine Gael, Mr. Varadkar's center-right party, and Fianna Fail, the
center-right opposition party. They have been trading power for decades.

Seat projections suggested that Fianna Fail was on track to win about 45
seats in the 160-seat Parliament, followed by Sinn Fein with 37 seats and
Fine Gael with 36 seats. A number of smaller left-wing parties and
independent lawmakers also won seats.

The results almost certainly would have been worse for the center-right
parties had Sinn Fein, recovering from a poor showing in local elections
last year and cautious about its prospects, not chosen to put forward only
42 candidates.

Control of Parliament will most likely be resolved in coalition negotiations
over the coming weeks, with no obvious solution to the deadlock.

Both center-right parties had ruled out an alliance with Sinn Fein during
the campaign, with Mr. Varadkar going so far as to say that Sinn Fein was
"not a normal party." But analysts said the prospect of the two big parties
joining forces themselves was remote, given the fear that anything less than
a stellar run in power might tee up Sinn Fein for an even stronger showing
in next election.

Image

Counting ballots in Cork on Sunday.

Counting ballots in Cork on Sunday.Credit...Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

That appears to leave a coalition between Sinn Fein and one of the
center-right parties as a plausible way out of the stalemate.

Analysts believe Fianna Fail is the more likely candidate, given its
desperation to return to power and its control of a larger share of
parliamentary seats. But they warned that any agreement was far from sealed
and the result of negotiations difficult to predict.

Sinn Fein also said it would try to form a coalition with other left-wing
parties, though not all of them see eye to eye, either. A second election
also remains a possibility.

Analysts said the conditions that fueled Sinn Fein's rise mirrored those
that have driven support in Britain for Jeremy Corbyn, the hard-left Labour
Party leader, and in the United States for the Democratic presidential
aspirant Bernie Sanders. Chief among those conditions are young people
suffering from low pay and skyrocketing rents, and widespread anger at tax
breaks and gentrification.

But Sinn Fein's anti-establishment campaign in Ireland is even more potent,
untarnished as it is by any time in power.

"What this says, I think, is that in the right circumstances, the left can
still make a very popular appeal," said Michael Marsh, a professor at
Trinity College Dublin. "But they're able to do it in Ireland because the
left has never been in power. In most of Europe, it has."

Huge challenges lay ahead if Sinn Fein joins a coalition government.

The party made a number of bold promises during its campaign, including a
vow to build 100,000 homes, a task that analysts believe will be complicated
by the need to recruit more builders for Ireland's growing construction
industry.

Still, for voters disgusted by decades of stagnation in Irish politics,
seeing anyone but the same old faces at the top of the polls was welcome.

At the Lark Inn, a pub in a part of central Dublin where Sinn Fein has long
been popular, John Flood, 75, a retired interior decorator, sat at the bar
as the television showed Ireland's two main parties losing one seat after
another.

Mr. Flood said homelessness was the most important problem facing the next
government, a problem he said past governments had done little to solve.

"The rich get richer and the poor get poorer," Mr. Flood said, "but their
policies all stay the same."

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