I

God knows there was nothing to cover in the campaign itself. Granted, An Taoiseach being caught out as a rude and cranky rightwinger was good, but who didn’t already believe that to be the case? It was an underwhelming few weeks, a dull end to a shoddy Government that had not a single accomplishment. Yet again, the Liberal Right has squatted in power only to ensure that no one else can come to power and do something. 

Let us note that Irish exceptionalism apparently continues, as we appear to have returned to power an incumbent Government in this year when, it is claimed, incumbents everywhere have been thrown out.

BUT Fianna Fáil has had its second-lowest vote share in history, and Fine Gael its third-lowest. High-profile Ministers from the former failed to be elected, while the latter saw more than half its TDs stand down before the election, so frightened were they of what might happen. The zombie Labour party, hyped without cease by a shameless media, has in fact also had its second-worst result in history, dramatically increasing its vote share by 0.3% from last time round.

Two phenomena have allowed every party to act as if the Irish people have rewarded them handsomely: in the first place, there were fourteen more seats available in the Thirty-Fourth Dáil; in the second place, the annihilation of the Green Party meant that a further eleven seats were available. This pool of twenty-five seats was distributed across seven parties, facilitating the general air of jubilation amongst the political class that contrasted so strongly with the public mood. Sinn Féin, so recently a viable alternative to the reigning duopoly, has been punished by the people for not yet having been able to form a Government, and has lost votes to its Right and Left. Other than the extinction of the Greens, the only major movement in the results was a 5.5% drop in their support. But so bad had the expectations been that they also were able and willing to celebrate their result.

The good news—thinking dialectically—is that the Partionist Party will imagine that the policies that have made them so unpopular are in fact working for them, and they will continue to pursue them. The bad news is that it is not clear what will happen after they are conclusively punished, not to mention the years of Corruption and Class War to which we will be subject in the meantime.

II

Let us look at a few features of the political landscape of the twenty-six county State.

While it is clearly correct to refer to the extraordinarily static political scene, in fact within the context of FF/FG dominance, the Irish voters have actually been able to experiment quite consistently, like lab mice that find various means of showing some creativity while stuck in a cage. The electorate has routinely elevated smaller parties, and then thrown them out, normally when they attach themselves to the Civil War parties. The Progressive Democrats was made up of those slightly more active Liberals who had left both parties, and was finally abolished, having spent most of its existence in Government. The Workers’ Party was a significant force, a Eurocommunist party on an upwards trajectory until the end of the Soviet Union prompted the grotesque elected representatives to make their peace with the Liberal Right, in the form not only of coalition, but of a merger (for which read reverse take-over) of the Labour Party. 

More recently, the Labour and Green wings of the Establishment have been given the role of FF/FG enablers, the well-known mudguard role in a coalition. They go in knowing that they will be wiped out, but what a period of comfort for them in the meantime: airtime, Mercs, a sense of importance confirmed by astronomical payments made to them for the rest of their lives—and, no doubt, the pleasure to be had from understanding that they are fulfilling an ideological function, for it is a structural necessity that the smaller parties prop up the larger branches of the Partionist Party and face their punishment afterwards. Just as it is a structural necessity that there be two large (now middling) Liberal Right parties to choose from, our Democracy with Irish Characteristics.

One lamentable innovation of the Irish political system is the phenomenon of political parties made up of independents. This is unsurpassable Gombeen behaviour: the independents thus obtain certain benefits associated with party status, with none of the voting discipline or the need for clear policy objectives. There are multiple examples of this from recent politics: the Independent Alliance, Independents 4 Change, Right 2 Change—the first named of these entered into a tawdry arrangement to have some part-time Ministerial posts for its clownish members before it imploded when faced with the electorate. As of the date of publication, the Independent Alliance is in talks to achieve a similar deal, with a likely similar impact on the functioning of the State.

Note that the above described phenomenon is distinct from those parties that are vehicles for individuals who are essentially independents: Renua, Aontú, or, going back further, Independent Fianna Fáil or Noël Browne’s various outfits. Macdara cannot bring himself to describe the gene pool Deputies that pollute Irish Politics: even the Social Democrats and Greens had gene pool candidates running, and in the latter case, one was elected: if the gormless leader of the Green Party wishes to double the number of his party’s TDs, he could invite the gene pool Green back into the party…what a good news day that would be for them!

As for the convicted criminal who failed to get elected, your correspondent’s position is that, if the choice was between him and an entity from the Labour Party, then it is better to go for the known criminal. The Labour Party, with its sister parties, has ensured that its representatives’ behaviour does not count as criminal: people die of poverty every day, but that is Normal, and not at all the result of a Campaign led by a right-wing Government: the Law, written by murderers, is clear on this point…