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Irish General Election


Dougie Do'ins
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54 minutes ago, JohnnyH said:

Without question. It won’t be 80 seats, but it’ll be close to 55 or so. And the only way another GE happens will be with a general feeling that Sinn Fein and the “will of the people” have not been acted on, with Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil shafting the vote. So I think even more people would vote for Sinn Fein. They’d end up in coalition with a junior partner, and McDomald would be Taoiseach. That’s my feeling. 

Yeah I would agree with this.

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1 hour ago, Nunavut Patrick said:

As an outsider to all this will Guiness still taste the same?

 

And won’t Sinn Fein want to push for reunification and won’t that open up hostilities again with the Loyalists in NI?

 

No, because apparently Mary Lou's going to get Boris to let the Brexit voters give NI back to Ireland.

 

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4 hours ago, Nunavut Patrick said:

As an outsider to all this will Guiness still taste the same?

 

And won’t Sinn Fein want to push for reunification and won’t that open up hostilities again with the Loyalists in NI?


1) The Sinn Fein Manifesto states they want to add paprika to Guinness. 
 

2) Yes. A very real threat that after reunification the likes of the UVF could start a campaign in Dublin. 

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8 hours ago, JohnnyH said:

Without question. It won’t be 80 seats, but it’ll be close to 55 or so. And the only way another GE happens will be with a general feeling that Sinn Fein and the “will of the people” have not been acted on, with Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil shafting the vote. So I think even more people would vote for Sinn Fein. They’d end up in coalition with a junior partner, and McDomald would be Taoiseach. That’s my feeling. 

Is there a reason they wouldn't just stand in all the seats?

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8 hours ago, JohnnyH said:


80 seats are needed to form a government. Sinn Fein are now speaking with the other parties and independents to see who will go into government with them with McDonald as Taoiseach.  Michael Martin, leader of Fianna Fáil who won the most amount of seats (beat Sinn Fein by 1) will be doing the same. However, they initially said they wouldn’t go into government with SF before the election. But have started to flip on that. So I think it’ll be a Fianna Fáil, Sinn Fein, Green Party coalition, left leaning government that gets fuck all done. Martin will be Taoiseach and Már Lou McDonald will be Tanaiste (deputy Taoiseach). 
 

It’s been a mad general election and the shock waves are still being felt. 

 

Heard my father-in-law on FaceTime talking about it to my wife the other night. 

I was on the other side of the house, and had to turn up the TV, considerably, to drown out his voice.

 

 

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3 hours ago, Mudface said:

Is there a reason they wouldn't just stand in all the seats?

 

I just don't think they have the people to put forward to get over 80 if there was another election in a few months.  I could be wrong, that's just my thought/guess. If they could add another 15-20 seats to what they've done then that'd be incredible for them, and would allow them lead a coalition. No one was more surprised by this election result than Sinn Fein themselves. Only a few months back they did very poorly in the local elections. After 100 years of Fine Gael/Fianna Fail Governments, the people were fed up and wanted a change.  SFs left leaning (Housing, homelessness, tax the mega-rich, pro-immigration, etc) policies really resonated with the youth and left leaning oider generations of which there are plenty in Ireland.  But there is still a lot of anti FF/FG about the vote and that makes it a volatile position. Once you get below the first preferences on teh ballot it was anyones game in this election.  Just go back to 2011 and Labour were second in the polls and were fully back.  A very poor showing in government and now 2 elections later and they are virtually gone as a going concern.  

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Trying to explain why SF would not necessarily benefit from a re-run and more candidates involves first explaining the Irish electoral system, which might be akin to explaining the offside rule to someone who has never seen a football match, but feck it, I enjoy formulating thoughts about the whole thing so here goes. To get elected in Ireland, you need to 'reach the quota'. Imagine a 1 seat constituency with 10,000 votes cast. You calculate what is required for a majority by taking the number of seats (1), adding 1 (2), dividing 10,000 (all the votes cast) by that number (10,000 / 2 = 5,000 or 50%) and adding 1 (5,001). The maths is important because it explains how you get a 'majority' (quota) in a 4 seat constituency. You take the number of seats (4), add 1 (5), divide 10,000 by that number (10,000 / 5 = 2,000 or 20%) and adding 1 (2,001). You need to get 2,001 votes after a count to be elected. 

 

Now let's map that onto a real world example, my own constituency of Waterford. I'll stick with the notion of 10,000 vote elctorate as it scales up/down perfectly. SF only ran 1 candidate and he got the equivalent of 3,900 votes. A second SF candidate would definitely have won a second seat but this would, assuming the number of votes cast remain the same in another election, present short and long term problems for SF. In the short term, SF would only gain at the expense of other parties of, shall we say, change. The Greens benefitted hugely when SF's extra votes (surplus) were given out to other candidates. What's more FG, the party of non-change, had run two candidates in the hope of picking up votes across the constituency and when one got eliminated he would push the other over the finishing line. What happened was their respective votes were so close and their overall vote had fallen so precipitously that the Greens were always far enough ahead and always picking up votes from everyone else that they got to the finishing line first. If there were another election FG would definitely not run two candidates and they would be ahead of the Greens at the end. Then there's the long term problem of which the current sole SF candidate will be acutely aware. If he has a 'running mate', then he has a rival in the next election in five year's time. If SF's vote falls, and it certainly will if they do go into government as they become the party of non-change, then 2 into 1 won't go.

 

tl;dr: SF should be careful what they wish for.

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30 minutes ago, deiseach said:

Trying to explain why SF would not necessarily benefit from a re-run and more candidates involves first explaining the Irish electoral system, which might be akin to explaining the offside rule to someone who has never seen a football match, but feck it, I enjoy formulating thoughts about the whole thing so here goes. To get elected in Ireland, you need to 'reach the quota'. Imagine a 1 seat constituency with 10,000 votes cast. You calculate what is required for a majority by taking the number of seats (1), adding 1 (2), dividing 10,000 (all the votes cast) by that number (10,000 / 2 = 5,000 or 50%) and adding 1 (5,001). The maths is important because it explains how you get a 'majority' (quota) in a 4 seat constituency. You take the number of seats (4), add 1 (5), divide 10,000 by that number (10,000 / 5 = 2,000 or 20%) and adding 1 (2,001). You need to get 2,001 votes after a count to be elected. 

 

Now let's map that onto a real world example, my own constituency of Waterford. I'll stick with the notion of 10,000 vote elctorate as it scales up/down perfectly. SF only ran 1 candidate and he got the equivalent of 3,900 votes. A second SF candidate would definitely have won a second seat but this would, assuming the number of votes cast remain the same in another election, present short and long term problems for SF. In the short term, SF would only gain at the expense of other parties of, shall we say, change. The Greens benefitted hugely when SF's extra votes (surplus) were given out to other candidates. What's more FG, the party of non-change, had run two candidates in the hope of picking up votes across the constituency and when one got eliminated he would push the other over the finishing line. What happened was their respective votes were so close and their overall vote had fallen so precipitously that the Greens were always far enough ahead and always picking up votes from everyone else that they got to the finishing line first. If there were another election FG would definitely not run two candidates and they would be ahead of the Greens at the end. Then there's the long term problem of which the current sole SF candidate will be acutely aware. If he has a 'running mate', then he has a rival in the next election in five year's time. If SF's vote falls, and it certainly will if they do go into government as they become the party of non-change, then 2 into 1 won't go.

 

tl;dr: SF should be careful what they wish for.

 

This is true. Adding multiple candidates in one constituency from the same party is very risky due to how we divvy up our votes especially after a 1st preference win, and especially now where there are multiple creditable Independent candidates. SF would need to put people into areas they didn't contest, but then there may be a reason they didn't contest them.  That coupled with the generally capricious feeling around a lot of the vote puts it all up in the air.  I still think that if FF and FG try and push themselves back in with some willing supplicant to get them over the mark, and it fails and another GE was called, I think Sinn Fein could do even better as everyone would be furious.  

 

But deiseach's is just as creditable.  That's where we are.

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I voted for the Social Democrats this time around. They more or less occupy the ground where the Labour Party should be IMO and indeed have some former Labour reps in their party now. Unfortunately their candidate didn't get elected this time around but I can see them being strong in future. My 2nd preference went to SF's Paul Donnelly who topped the poll, and who honestly does some great work on the ground around the entire area. I live in Leo Varadkar's constituency and I'm just happy the smug prick didn't top the poll and had to suffer waiting until the 5th vote to get in.

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54 minutes ago, SasaS said:

That's all very interesting.

Who dou you lads support personally and why?

 

I was very conflicted in this election.  I've always advocated using your vote wisely, i.e. don't vote for someone who has no chance.  If you hate the realistic options then vote for the ones you hate the least.  But after the last 12-15 years I just couldn't bring myself to vote for Fianna Fail or Fine Gael at the top end of the ballot.  So I then did the thing I hate even more whereby I placed my vote around local politics as opposed to the big picture of the country. So the Labour guy got my Number 1 and Sinn Fein number 2. Two people who've done very well with local issues.  3 was the Greens, and down from there. First vote for either of the two established parties was Farrell of Fine Gael who was 6th on my ballot.  I'm historically from a Fianna Fail family - a very important thing in Ireland, usually decided based on your side in the Civil War a 100 years ago.  But not one member of my family voted Fianna Fail as Number 1. First time ever for 86 year old dad.  

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1 hour ago, ZonkoVille77 said:

I voted for the Social Democrats this time around. They more or less occupy the ground where the Labour Party should be IMO and indeed have some former Labour reps in their party now. Unfortunately their candidate didn't get elected this time around but I can see them being strong in future. My 2nd preference went to SF's Paul Donnelly who topped the poll, and who honestly does some great work on the ground around the entire area. I live in Leo Varadkar's constituency and I'm just happy the smug prick didn't top the poll and had to suffer waiting until the 5th vote to get in.

 

I'm the same constituency and bar the first general election i could vote in (2011) where I voted Labour (Never again after they abandoned the working class and working man going against what a Labour party should stand for), I have always gone People before Profit or Solidarity in local and general elections since because the candidates in the area have done the best work from what I've seen through my line of work. This time I went for Donnelly and Sinn Fein though because we're in dire need of change and they're the only party which can realistically solve everything. I will be doing the same if we get another one. Things need to change. 

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The Social Democrats would also be my party of choice but they had no one in my constituency so I voted Green. Unfortunately he didn't get in, as the Sinn Fein candidate topped the poll and Fianna Fail and Fine Gael won the rest of the seats with high profile candidates. The other Fine Gael candidate, a former minister lost her seat and it was the first time a Sinn Fein has ever won a seat in that constituency.

 

I'm not pro-Sinn Fein by any means as I would doubt how workable their policies are or how left wing they are themselves after their time governing in Stormont. This is all notwithstanding their IRA baggage. However, the FG and FF duopoly has left this country in ruins - a top heavy mess with good GDP growth and ruinous public service and dreadful housing crisis under the bonnet. If Sinn Fein's surge can provoke some change and reversed the established order somewhat, then they will have served their purpose.

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I voted Social Democrats too, the candidate in my constituency was a former employee of the NHS and was proposing really intelligent changes to our health service. My mother has been in and out of hospital over the past few months and we've experienced the best and worst of our health service (mostly the bad) so this was top priority for me.

We're lumped in with Galway even though I live in South Mayo.  My other votes were for an Independent candidate (not the knuckle dragger Grealish), Sinn Fein and Labour.

I'd love to have voted for Saoirse McHugh, a very smart and progressive Green candidate in Mayo. 

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I voted for the Green Party, and while I would probably have voted for the Social Democrats if they had run in Waterford it was a positive vote rather than a to-hell-with-the-rest-of-them vote. There's a definitely a nascent Green movement in my home town of Tramore, with even a couple of celebrities in the mix in the form of Grace O'Sullivan, recently elected an MEP and such a rainbow warrior that she was on the Rainbow Warrior when the French secret service blew it up in Auckland, and Trevor Sargent, a former Green Party leader who is now, of all things, the local vicar! 

 

Perhaps more interesting/boring (delete as applicable) is that this is the vote of what was once a dyed-in-the wool FFer. All my family voted FF all their lives, with my grandmother, a woman who was done for impersonation for voting for SF in the 1918 general election, proudly voting for FF in 2007 aged 102, having voted for them in every election since 1932, before shuffling on in 2008 and thus being spared the torment of the electoral implosion that befell them in 2011. I had been quite active in student politics to the extent that I was pretty well acquainted with no less a person than Leo Varadkar, who I found to be a very likable chap and, as he was quick to point out to me, one of our own (his mother is from Dungarvan). Then again, it's easy to be active in student politics where we discussed the grand issues of the day unencumbered by the need to make sure potholes are filled or people don't die on trolleys, so I drifted away from things by the time of the economic implosion of 2008 which FF presided over. By the time the election that followed rolled around I had to face up to the fact that a vote for FF would be a way of saying it was all okay, so I voted for Labour. In the subsequent elections I have voted Green. 

 

Which is my long-winded way of saying that I should have mentioned, in my previous even more long-winded post, in support of JohnnyH's post about SF's electoral prospects, that once you have abandoned the tribe it becomes easier to stay away and harder to be drawn back. Voting for SF would have been a moderately taboo topic for a long time, and that taboo has been well and truly smashed in this election which might well be reflected in any election that took place this year. I am certain I will never vote SF (no need to kneecap me lads, this is likely to be the last election I'll be voting in Ireland as I prepare to move to Liverpool) but like EmCity I think it's positive that things have been shook up. 

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27 minutes ago, Babb'sBurstNad said:

Perhaps someone can explain something to an ignoramus like me?

 

I keep seeing it written that a coalition needs 80 seats for a majority. Yet, the parliament is 160 seats. Is there a reason for that number, rather than 81?

The first action of the new parliament will be to select a speaker. Once he/she is chosen, that leaves 159. It may sound academic, but speakers have often been chosen specifically from the ranks of what would be the opposition to reduce their numbers by one. You'd be mad to turn it down - you are automatically re-elected at the next election, so it's a plum job.

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