An Update: Ireland: Election 2011

In this short post I shall refer to the system of Irish politics and government. If you are unfamilar with either I advise you to read this recent post of mine:

http://planetpov.com/2011/02/25/ireland-election-2011/

If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask.

The ballots have been counted, candidates have been excluded and votes have been transferred. This General Election has proven have garnered more public interest than any in recent memory, with approximately 70% of eligible voters turning out to vote, a roughly 3% increase on the turnout in 2007. I suspect that many more would have voted if not for the old Fianna Fáil loyalties. I think that many could not have, in good faith, voted for Fianna Fáil considering the terrific damage which they’ve inflicted upon this country, but also could not bring themselves to vote for another party. Many, many others did not feel such a shame and continued to vote for this ruinous cabal of special interests.

However, another culprit in this rather comprehensive mess, the Green Party, not being a civil war, republican party were wiped out. The Green Party now holds a grand total of 0 seats in the Dáil. A result with which I cannot say that I’m entirely shocked or dissatisfied.

The other parties made quite well out of this election. Fine Gael increased its representation in the 166 member strong Dáil from 51 following the 2007 election to 76. The Labour Party raised its presence from 20 to 37 seats. Sinn Féin more than tripled its 2007 result of 4 seats to 14 in this election. The United Left Alliance, which represents a myriad of different “leftist” parties, made a breakthrough in the Dáil, gaining 5 seats – 2 of these went to the People Before Profit Alliance, 1 to an associated independent TD and 2 to the Socialist Party. Also, independent TD’s gained 15 seats in this election – including the aforementioned member of the ULA – up from 5 seats following the 2007 election.

And now for the kicker. Fianna Fáil’s Dáil representation fell from 77 seats to 20 (this includes the automatically re-elected Ceann Comhairle or Speaker). Now while this seems like a solid thrashing from the electorate, to me, it did not yield the satisfying splat of rock bottom that I wanted it to have. Perhaps I was being to optimistic to hope that the 20% of the electorate that gave their 1st preference vote to Fianna Fáil in this election could have seen the light of the train coming at them through the tunnel. Then again, certain unnamed and otherwise intelligent relatives of mine voted for Fianna Fáil because they believed the tax propaganda that Fianna Fáil were spewing. Then again, this election was sadly turned into a tax rodeo, with each party vying to give you a “better” deal.

A Fine Gael/Labour coalition is almost certain to be the next governing power. All that remains is to get both party leaders into the same room without a sorry excuse for an argument breaking out. The unsustainable and, quite frankly, fucked-up IMF/EU deal will be high on their agenda. Presumably the new Taoiseach will march to Brussels with a strongly worded letter and five burly Cork men with indecipherable accents, carrying hurls as back-up. They’ll then likely precede to implement their recovery plan, which may resemble beefed up former government programs; considering that Fine Gael has been described as Fianna Fáil with an ideology.

Anyway, this has been a quick update from the land shaped like a teddy bear on its side.

Thanks for reading.