Ireland Archive

The Republic of Ireland could be less than two weeks away from the triggering of a general election. The Green Party will be meeting on October 10 to vote on a new program for government, and the party’s leader, John Gormley, has made it clear that if the program doesn’t achieve two thirds support at the meeting, the party will leave the government, which would likely deprive Fianna Fail of a majority in the Dail. So we could be seeing a new election soon in Ireland.

Two separate stories have emerged in the last few days of governments that could lose their majority with the resignations of their own party’s parliamentarians.

In the Northern Territory, Labor MP Alison Anderson has resigned from the party, and is yet to make clear which party she would support in office. The last election saw Labor win 13 seats, the opposition Country Liberals won 11 and conservative independent Gerry Wood won the remaining seat. Marion Scrymgour subsequently resigned from the ALP in early 2009, but committed to supporting the Labor government, keeping it in office as a minority government. Scrymgour has rejoined the ALP following Anderson’s resignation.

The Northern Territory previously had ‘semi-fixed terms’, with an election only allowed to be called in the last year of a term. After Paul Henderson went to a disastrous early election last year, this was replaced with complete fixed terms. As Antony Green points out, this makes the Northern Territory the first jurisdiction to see a government lose its majority, forcing a possible ‘baton change’. In the case that the government were to lose a vote of no confidence, the opposition would have eight days to form a government with majority support (or the Labor Party could elect a new leader who could garner support from an independent). If this could not be achieved, an election would be triggered.

These sorts of results have been largely absent since the creation of the two-party system around 1910, although John Curtin took office mid-term from various conservative governments. You could argue that the Labor split of 1917 similarly saw mid-term changes of government, although in these cases the new governments included many members of the former government. Update: commenters have pointed out that there were midterm changes of government in the ACT in the early 1990s in the early days of self-government and in Queensland in 1996.

Assuming the Country Liberals take the earliest opportunity to call a no-confidence vote, we could be facing a new CLP government, or a fresh election, by the end of August. Even if the CLP can stitch together a majority, however, they may determine it is in their interests to hold back and wait for an election they would likely win, and wait for the eight days to pass.

Meanwhile, in Ireland, the governing Fianna Fail-Green coalition has stumbled further towards defeat, with two Fianna Fail TDs resigning the party whip and moving to the crossbenches over local issues. Following on from devestating local elections and the loss of one of their seats at a by-election in June, this reduces the government to an 83-81 majority, with one seat vacant.

The government consists of 72 Fianna Fail, 6 Greens, 2 former Progressive Democrats and three other independents, for a total of 83. The opposition consists of 52 Fine Gael, 20 Labour, 4 Sinn Fein and three independents, for a total of 79. On certain policy issues (probably including the expected harsh budget in November) these two splitters can be expected to vote with the opposition.

The Speaker can be expected to support the government in the event of a tie, while the vacant seat is that of Pat ‘the Cope’ Gallagher, who was elected to the European Parliament in June. His seat is in Donegal South West, where the government parties won 52% in 2007, in comparison with 47% for opposition parties. Considering the scale of the collapse of Fianna Fail’s support, it has to be judged likely that this seat will be lost, meaning that the opposition will only need one other TD to defect for them to gain a majority.

While Fine Gael and Labour could try to stitch together a new coalition government, considering their high poll ratings you would have to think they would support an early election and form a relatively stable government, with Fianna Fail in danger of coming third.

The position is disastrous for the Greens, who would likely be wiped out in such an election. This puts them in an impossible position. They can bring down the government, regain goodwill from their traditional voters, but likely still be heavily punished, or delay the election as long as possible and be possibly destroyed in punishment for maintaining Fianna Fail in government for even longer. I personally think that the Greens will probably lose all six of their seats either way, but by bringing down the government they regain some goodwill and will hopefully survive to fight another day. If they don’t act against the government now, they will go down in history as Fianna Fail apologists and won’t be able to return.

If this is your first foray into Irish politics, you might want to start by reading this morning’s post.

Ireland’s most successful politician in half a century, Bertie Ahern, announced his resignation as Fianna Fail leader and Taoiseach on 2 April 2008, and soon after his Minister of Finance, Brian Cowen, was elected as the new Taoiseach.

Early polls put Cowen’s government in a strong position, with Fianna Fail polling over 40%, well ahead of Fine Gael in the mid-20s. His government’s first challenge came in June, when the Lisbon Treaty went to a national referendum.

Read the rest of this entry »

As the economic crisis worsens and speculation of an early election in Ireland increases, it seemed about time to give Australian psephologists a crash-course in Irish politics. I’ll follow this up with another post about the possible early election later today.

Ireland is probably the most unique and fascinating of political systems amongst the rich anglophone countries. They have a very different electoral system and a very different party system to countries like the UK, Canada, the US and Australia, and even New Zealand.

Irish politics is dominated by two major parties who both sit on the conservative side of the spectrum when it comes to European politics and are hard to identify in the way that it is easy to align the Labour parties in Britain, New Zealand and Australia with the Liberals in Canada and the US Democrats, and align their conservative opponents. The two parties’ origins lie in the divisions over the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, which triggered the Irish Civil War.

The current government is led by Fianna Fáil (Gaelic for “Soldiers of Destiny”, pronounced “Feena Foll”), which originated in the anti-treaty elements during the Irish Civil War. It calls itself a “centrist’ party, and has tended to be Ireland’s dominant party.

The opposition is led by Fine Gael (pronounced “Finna Gale”) which can be described as “Christian democratic”. Again, like Fianna Fail, Fine Gael does not clearly distinguish itself as a centre-left or centre-right party. FG is considered to be more moderate in its nationalism while FF is considered more neoliberal in its economic policies.

Ireland’s electoral system allows access for a number of other parties. Like the ACT and Tasmania, the lower house of the Irish Parliament, the Dáil Éireann, is elected using the Single Transferable Vote. 43 constituencies across the Republic of Ireland elect 166 deputies, or TDs (“Teachta Dála”), with each constituency electing three, four or five deputies.

The outstanding third party in Irish politics is the Labour Party, which, as its name would suggest, is the main working-class and union political party. Unlike its namesakes in the UK and Australia, the party never achieved major party status and as such is considered to be further to the left, although Ireland is generally a conservative country, which could contribute to this perception. The party won 12% in 2007 and in recent years has been most closely aligned with Fine Gael.

The Irish Green Party came fourth at the 2007 election, electing six TDs. The party aligns with the European Green Party and the Global Greens, with similar policies to most Green parties.

The Dail also currently  includes 4 Sinn Fein TDs. The party, unlike in Northern Ireland, is largely sidelined and stands out as a quasi-revolutionary far-left nationalist party. It has in the past attempted to work on a “common left front” of Labour, the Greens and Sinn Fein, overlooking their major differences. The party is directly linked to its Northern Ireland namesake.

The other party in the Dail at the 2007 election was the Progressive Democrats, a neoliberal party founded as a splinter from Fianna Fail in the 1980s. The party was FF’s main ally in Bertie Ahern’s government for its first two terms from 1997 until 2007, when the party lost six of its eight seats. The party decided to disband in December 2008 and both its remaining TDs now sit as independents supporting the Fianna Fail government.

Five years of Fine Gael/Labour government from 1982 to 1987 were followed by a Fianna Fail minority government from 1987 to 1989, when an attempt to win a majority resulted in losses for Fianna Fail and a coalition with the much-reduced Progressive Democrats.

This government collapsed in 1992, which saw an election where the Labour party gained a large number of seats and was put in a position where the only possible government was Fianna Fail/Labour. This government was succeeded in 1994 by a Fine Gael/Labour/Democratic Left government, which governed until it was defeated by a Fianna Fail/Progressive Democrats coalition at the 1997 election.

I write all this to demonstrate the remarkable stability of the last decade. Bertie Ahern led a new coalition government to become Taoiseach (Irish term for Prime Minister) at the 1997 election. The collapse in Labour’s seat numbers saw Fianna Fail and the PDs almost reach a majority, which they did with the support of independent TDs. At the 2002 election, Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats gained four seats each, resulting in 89 seats out of 166, a solid majority in Irish terms.

Ahern led the party to a third election in 2007, where Fianna Fail was reduced to its 1997 position, but a recovery in support for Fine Gael and the collapse of the Progressive Democrats resulted in a new Fianna Fail/Green/Progressive Democrats government. When Ahern retired as Taoiseach in 2008, he was the second longest-serving in modern Irish history.

My next post: The economic crisis, the Brian Cowen government, the collapse of Fianna Fail, and calls for an early election.