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Sinn Fein: the underperforming Alliance party of the Republic?
Read more about: Irish Election, Irish Politics, Sinn Féin 
Gerry Adams concedes that his party faces a lot of work in the next two years before the council elections in 2009. The sheer size of the gap between current political reality and the party’s own ambition is easily seen when you consider that its performance compares unfavourably with the Alliance party in Northern Ireland. In the recent Assembly elections the Alliance Party garnered 5.2% of the vote and took seven seats in an Assembly of 109 members. Sinn Fein took 6.9% of Thursday’s vote, which brought them just four seats out of a total of 166 in Dáil Éireann. Although on a better day they might have expected to made a gain or two on their previous total, the poor correlation between percentage of the vote and their seat tallies suggests that they have some considerable way to go before becoming accepted as part of the political landscape south of the border. That their sole surviving Dublin TD only made it with the help of transfers from several other leftist candidates also suggests they are fishing in the margins of an over crowded market.
The sheer foreign-ness of the party to most southerners is a major problem. Adams almost completely ignored Roisin Duffy’s question on This Week today that the widely held perception of the party was as ‘political tourists’ whose political legitimacy is part underwritten by their status as MPs, ie the Westminster parliament, and not the Dáil. There is little doubt that the heavily accented northern leadership is becoming increasingly incongruent to southern voters.
The failure to take even one of the two Donegal seats, and the large slippage in the support of Mary Lou McDonald’s vote in Dublin Central, presents a major problem for them going forward in this area.
In retrospect maybe they should have Caoimhghin O Caolain in the leaders’ debate. I know they probably had some desire to put their all-Ireland leader in there but they could have argued that as it was a contest for the Dail, their Dail leader would be their representative. But the broader picture they’re up against is that the Republic is just a conservative country. Compare the landscape to that of Scotland with the two biggest parties both tilting left — just one nationalist as well and one not. In the Republic they’re a left/nationalist party, and unreconstructed left at that, and that ends up being a very small electoral pool.
Interesting post Mick. I think you’re spot on basically. But, another factor was that FFs consolidation of it’s vote prevented too much going to SF.
Actually P O’Neill, that’s a very astute take you have regarding C O’C. He’s hardly on the radical wing of SF and yes, might well have played as a more serious or at least more involved face than GA in the debate. I also think the way they shifted over the campaign from being an oppositional voice to a ‘party of government’ cost them dearly on doorsteps amongst a constituency who didn’t want them in power, at least not yet.
I also think that there is a sense, in SF, that they’re attempting to follow the old WP path of the 1980s (tactically of course, not politically) of steady progress forward. But the thing is that WP had gains then setbacks, and more to the point never really shifted as far and fast to the centre ground (even at the end) as SF seemingly has.
There is a major difference between the Alliance Party and Sinn Fein IRA. The Alliance party are democrats and are committed to a better future for their electorate through the democratic process. They lost out this year but as things stabilise they will be back.
Sinn Fein IRA are murdering terrorists who will line democrats (starting with people like bloggers) up against a wall and shoot us if they ever seize power through either the ballot box or the gun. They aren’t too fussy which but this year it’s the ballot box. 10 years ago it was the gun. 10 years time who knows. WMD perhaps.
Sinn Féin has a problem. The factors that lead to success in one place exposes their credibility elsewhere. It’s very difficult to be a party of government and an anti-establishment party of protest and opposition. How will the party react to its disappointing results down here? Does it see itself as part of a progressive, broad left, prepared to co-operate with other such entities in trying to undo the dominance of FF and FG? Or do they cleave to a more pan-nationalist orientation and hope some day to enter government with Fianna Fáil? Such questions have been posed before but perhaps this time we might see some stirrings of internal party debate. The quality and nature of that debate – if indeed it takes place at all or is in some way disseminated to a wider audience – will give some clue as to the ‘normalisation’ of Sinn Féin as a political party.
i think if nothing else this election has proven that irish people are greedy. the election was won on the strength of the economy. it seems that the fear of the famine is still with us.
the most telling indication of this was that the accusation that did the most damage to gerry adams and the leadership of sinn fein wasn’t that they were terrorists, but that they ‘didn’t understand the economy.’
the majority of the Irish electorate are a principle-free zone, voting for the narrowest form of self-interest, greed will always win and if you convince voters that your party will work to enhance the greed of all, will enshrine greed as the salient virtue while dishing out the usual lip-service to the trivial matters of global-warming and social inequality etc you’re on a winner boy!