In one of our podcasts analysing the 2020 general election (link below), historian Brian Hanley was emphatic that the Sinn Féin surge in that election represented a seismic shift in the political landscape. Despite a drop in Sinn Féin’s vote, that remains the case: the two historically dominant political parties have been replaced by three. Moreover, analysis of transfers suggests a more or less coherent Fianna Fáil/Fine Gael bloc on one side, with a much less coherent so-called ‘left’ opposition of Sinn Féin, Labour, Social Democrats and People Before Profit on the other, and a range of Independents in between. This might explain the collapse of the Greens in this election. In 2020 many of their TDs were elected to final seats by ‘left’ transfers; what they were punished for in this election was not for failing to deliver on their policies in government (which they did) but a perception that they had gone over to ‘the other side’.
Yet while the political landscape has shifted, it has not resulted in a change of government. Some have pointed the finger at proportional representation, which since the 1980s has had a ‘balkanising’ effect, creating a myriad of small parties and Independents. But why didn’t this happen previously? ‘Civil War politics’ have been much derided, but could it be that the gravitational pull of that conflict, while it lasted, by limiting the appeal of other parties at least created a manageable political system—and one, moreover, in which voters had the clear and realistic option of voting governments out?
True, it was an option excercised sparingly by the electorate, with Fianna Fáil in power for two sixteen-year periods—1932–48 and 1957–73. If the next general election is in 2029, as expected, Fine Gael will have been in government for eighteen years. Is it any wonder that over 40% of the electorate didn’t bother to vote or, worse, in my own constituency of Dublin Central, voted for Gerry Hutch, a convicted gangster? When asked why, many of his supporters said that they wanted to ‘shake up the system’—a reasonable enough aspiration, perhaps, in a functioning democracy.
[‘Making sense of the 2020 and 2024 general elections’, https://historyireland.com/hedge-schools/]
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