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Alex White Topping Seanad Cultural and Educational Poll, A Tale of Two Pacts?
Read more about: Democracy, Government, Irish Politics, Labour Party, Seanad, Sinn Féin 
Rumours trickling out of the very long Seanad Count (due to end Friday) suggest that Alex White is currently topping his respective poll in the Cultural and Education panel. Apparently he is under 10 votes off the quota (around 175) which should see him elected relatively early on. With Labour having 130 odd votes one must assume the remainder of his 165 odd votes is coming from Sinn Fein
This is interesting as it represents the Labour half of the Labour-Sinn Fein pact discussed earlier this month and agreed by Joe Costello with Sinn Fein. If both White and Doherty are successful, it would represent a highly symbolic moment in the politics here in the Republic viz Sinn Fein. There will also be room to point to the differing effectiveness of the two pacts also.
Update 16:40: Alex White (LAB) has been elected.
quota (around 175)
Says it all about the Seanad really
Who’s Alex White ? I never heard of him.
Alex White is a little unremarkable, he ran and failed to get elected in Dublin South in May.
what is newsworthy is the fact that Labour councillors and Sinn Fein councillors entered a pact to get both White and Pearse Doherty elected in different panels. White’s success suggests that the pact held up and we may well see Sinn Fein succeed too.
That, to my mind, is a huge symbolic shift in irish politics which will likely open doors over the coming five years.
Really? Was the very similar pact between the PDs and Democratic Left in the 1990s a symbolic shift?
considering that following that DL ended up in power when in 92 they were untouchable to FG I would argue yes.
i mean symbolic in that it alters the way the various parties appraise each other. While FG were also forced into a partnership with DL out of numbers, one can point to institutional shifts such as PD/DL as a factor in easing that path
Ah, I guess so. I was just being cheeky. They should have merged, though. The PDL Party.
I know you were and right to be, this could be a nothing in the grand scheme of things, and I am not great at making predictions!
Still a history with the PDL would be amazing, perpetual government for a party of the margins on all sides!
Correction – those elected were:
White (Lab) 7th count
Twomey (FG) 12th count
Keaveney (FF) 14th count
Ó Murchú (FF) 14th count
Ormonde (FF) 14th count without reaching quota.
Although Slowey (FG) had more votes than Ormonde (FF) on the final count, Ormonde was elected because no more than three candidates can be elected from the Oireachtas sub-panel (the light blue lines on the spreadsheet) and White, Twomey and Keaveney had already been elected, and meaning that Slowey was ineligible for election.