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Where Did Sinn Fein go Wrong in This Election?
Read more about: Fianna Fail, Fine Gael, Government, Green Party, Irish Election, Irish Politics, Labour Party, Parties, Policy, Sinn Féin 
Chris Gaskin has a very detailed insight into what it was about the Sinn Fein campaign that led to the result which left them down a seat on 4 (the first time since the 80s that Sinn Fein has not increased all 3 of seats/votes/vote %). It reads like an honest account of how the leadership made the wrong decisions and prosecuted the wrong campaign. I agree they were close in some areas, but their vote in those areas suffered from the drawbacks of a campaign surely designed to achieve their desired wins in Donegal and Dublin.
Before I briefly outline what Chris’ take is on the Sinn Fein vote, I think myself that this was a case of working class voters that were targetted by Sinn Fein moving back to Fianna Fail. I don’t think that it was the rise in Fine Gael or the holding steady of Labour and the Greens that hurt Sinn Fein as much as it was the support which was received by Sinn Fein candidates. They are one of the only parties which can conceivably challenge Fianna Fails working class vote consistently.
I mentioned a long time ago that I thought this strategy would help to break up the huge cross-class vote structure which Fianna Fail has built up over the years. At the time I suggested that it would require a quasi-coordination between Fine Gael, Labour/Green and Sinn Fein to target the different demographics in the Fianna Fail vote (from which it draws a roughly equal vote share) rather than all four parties try to take an equal percent of all A-F class votes from Fianna Fail.
That this failed to materialise was one of the sources of difficulty for smaller parties. Fianna Fail continued to hoover up votes from everywhere (especially new commuters, a topic I hope to turn to tomorrow) which reflects that the opposition were primarily challenging Fianna Fail on all fronts (so to speak). Sinn Fein were undone by a return to FF of their working class vote. I think that Chris’ points regarding how and why this happened are by and large spot on.
Chris cites 4 major problems which Sinn Fein (especially the Ard Comhairle) encountered in this campaign. 1) The big Fianna Fail -v- Fine Gael narrative, 2) the lack of any substance to Sinn Fein policy (a factor starkly pointed up by Adams’ performance on the Leaders’ Debates. 3) An excessive focus on the North, the paradox of the peace process’ seeming conclusion is that it now becomes a ‘success’ not a ‘job to do’ and with that voters don’t really want to hear it. Sinn Fein spent too much time on it. 4) The mistakes made by the leadership on a number of issues, notably where to run Mary-Lou.
The solution is a reform of the party policy process and reflection on the vital lessons that need to be learned about politics in the Republic. These are tough lessons but the party (ies?) which learn them will be best placed to make strides into the future. I would return to my own intuition on this that Sinn Fein and others need to break down the catch-all Fianna Fail vote in a quasi-organised way by each picking away at a section not a proportion of the whole.
i agree completly with the final point. Sinn Féin and Labour need to co-ordinate their attack on FF’s base – each taking the slice the other is excluded from.
This means, of course, that labour and Sinn Fein have to get talking to each other!
Oh, I think the entire article is spot-on as well.
Conor correct, the underperformance of Labour and Sinn Fein must mean that they need to work together.
Talks between Labour & SF will never happen while Rabbitte remains leader of Labour. The vicious animosity of the old Stickie attitude towards SF is personified in Rabbitte with his roots in the Workers Party and Democratic Left.
It would be a mistake for competing parties like SF and Labour to stop competing with each other for certain demographics. This makes it easier for FF as they only have to fight one party at every level and since they’d be the only one with their hands in every pie, would surely make gains.
One great irony that would arise from such a situation is that FF could legitimately claim to be about equality as they’d be the only ones competing for votes at all levels of society.
Why should SF and Labour co-ordinate their attack on the FF vote in an agreed way or otherwise? Pat Rabbitte & Co. made the very clear leap into legitimate politics with the formation of DL. This is still one of the questions that is at best left vaguely unanswered by SF. At worst they’re openly celebrating their inglorious past and present. This is there for all to see in their two-faced bullying of the McCartneys – they bang on about human rights and assume the moral high ground while leaving questions unanswered. What about the human rights of those who’ve been murdered or conveniently ″disappeared″, Mr Adams? Oh, sorry – surely the rights of your Columbia Contractors are far more important? Unless it really is true that Garda-murderers are more equal than the lives they’ve snuffed out, I question SF’s credibility on their own tired mantras. What are the true values of a party whose political policies are a hodge-podge of wild and vague promises designed to appeal to the disaffected? I’m pretty disaffected myself – I sure wish my average industrial wage could get me a roof over my head. I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing Armani but couldn’t afford the luxury if I changed my mind. If only I was as adept at supplementing my income with a few involuntary donations from my friendly neighbourhood lending institution and had the ability to doublethink my way through the moral minefield that prevents me from seriously considering such an undertaking.
So long story short, I was once a citizen in a state where people had the memories of fish. They kept on electing the party with the most reckless fiscal record because their dishonest and corrupt leader liked Man U, Dublin football and a pint of Bass. (At least Noel Ivory stood for something – Bertie wouldn’t know an opinion if it bit him). But he was the Messiah in comparison with with those in the National Socialist and Raving party.
Thank you North Dublin for being more perceptive than the rest of us fish. Let’s see which is the first party to put its head on the block and follow the likes of Mary Lou McDonald into the Faustian Pact with the Army Council (which as we all shoul remember, has been the legitimate, if undemocratic, government of the entire island since 1916).
Further to my previous post, I think Sinn Féin is defunct as a political party in the south. The electorate does not want them – it’s that simple. The time has come for the anyone who’s serious about politics in SF to follow their former brethern and make the clear and unambiguous decision to leave the past behind for good. It will only be after several years of ″Provisional Democratic Left″ engaging in real politics here in the south that Labour should consider doing business with them.
Sinn Fein had a bad election, but they are far from defunct as a political party in the south. and I wouldn’t read the demise of Sinn Fein into the failure of Mary Lou to get elected. She was a parachute candidate. If they had stuck with Nicky Kehoe, it would have taken that last seat. not my words, Tony Gregory’s.
At this moment, it appears that Sinn Fein remains far too radical a step for a large slice of working class FFers. People are worried about the economy, and don’t believe that Sinn Féin are up to the job of having a political say in its direction. but in five years time?
It’s refreshing to read an honest blog like Gerald Hill’s.
In the minds of most taxpaying voters in the South, Sinn Fein is, de facto, the IRA, a party with relevance in Northern Ireland, but not in the South.
Like Israel, Northern Ireland is a state created by lazy blue pencil compromise, now driven by sectarianism, doomed to continue deadlocked.
In fact, the recent reason that SF & the DUP appeared to agree to joint government was a need to ensure that they secured their wages. They will remain deadlocked forever, just like the Arabs and the Jews – same ethnic people – they just worship in different temples.
The promotion of Mary Lou McDonald was a cynical attempt by Adams to project a middle class image, the same as the conversion to Irish versions of Mary Brown to Maire de Brun. God alone knows what O’Snodaigh means.
Who do they think they are kidding?
To the Irish voter, Sinn Fein is the party that is funded by criminal activities; armed robbery; drugs; smuggling; protection rackets etc…
…the party whose arsenal of AK 47′s etc. has been appropriated by the drug barons for the almost daily murders on the streets of Limerick; Cork & Dublin.
SF is the party who would wish to impose a state similar to Cuba. A state where there is no representative from the native black population in government or in the state apparatus. Where the natives are allowed catch lobsters but are not allowed to eat them. Where the natives are not allowed into the state run hotels.
Fiann Fail appeal to those who want to quit their roots and prosper. The image of the Mercs and Perks appeal to the ambitious.
The “no-hoper’s” and the disaffected will always gravitate to demagogues like Adams and talk about 800 years under the yoke of the Brits (factually incorrect, unless they think the Normans were English!).
Adams was feeble on TV, exposing his total failure to grasp the realities of 21st Century Ireland; repeating the failed slogans -which may have resonances for dispossessed Northern Catholics – but don’t wash in rich Celtic Tiger Ireland.
It was right & proper that Bertie Ahern was voted into a position where he might continue to rule, if only to undo the mess he & his party of underachievers have made of the huge efforts of the private sector in keeping the Celtic motor powering ahead.
He might, if he is returned to power, take a leaf out of Nichols Sarcozy’s book and slash the Cabinet numbers and the various useless Ministries and their attendant, bloated, civil service.
He might even try & reform the Trade Unions.
And pigs might fly.