With the presidential election over, Johnny Lumley asks whether the result holds any hints about the future of Irish politics.
Low voter turnout
The turnout to vote this year, although an improvement from 2018, increasing from 43.87% to 45.83%, still saw particular Counties such as Donegal not even scraping 40%.
Head organiser for the Youth for Connolly campaign, Aoife Kilbane McGowan, had this to say: “With almost all meaningful political power resting in the Dáil, many people feel that voting in local and Presidential elections is a waste of time, which is a legitimate opinion to hold: Ireland's local authorities hold the least power in Europe, to the extent that the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe issued a report condemning our system as undemocratic in 2023. This feeling of disillusionment is only intensified in the Presidential election.”
This feeling of disillusionment, as McGowan describes, coincides with what is undeniably the most worrying trend within this most recent election, that being the immense increase in spoiled ballots, which means that people intentionally made their ballot paper invalid, purposely discarding their vote. Such spoiled ballots accounted for 12.9% of all votes that were cast, compared to the 2018 election in which spoiled votes only accounted for 1.2% of turnout.
Spoiled votes
In a poll conducted by Ireland Thinks, the overwhelming sentiment that encouraged those to spoil their vote was due to a feeling of a lack of choice between the candidates, this being understandable given that after the dropout of Fianna Fáil candidate Jim Gavin mere weeks before polls opened, voters were essentially pigeon-holed to two candidates.
This lack of a choice of candidates potentially calls into question the integrity of the presidential nomination process. Táinaiste Simon Harris blocked Fine Gael councillors from nominating alternative independent candidates that were not ratified by the party. Fianna Fáil members have criticised their own party’s nomination process under Micheál Martin.
A lack of alternative independent candidates, as well as the dropout of Gavin, thus left those who are centrist to right-leaning of the political spectrum who may not have empathised with the Humphreys campaign or preferred alternative candidates with very few options.
A Left-wing Alliance?
The election of Catherine Connolly to the Arás, while a largely ceremonial role, represents a possible movement of left-wing solidarity against the establishment parties of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil. Connolly received the backing from the five major left-leaning political parties in Ireland (Sinn Féin, Labour, People Before Profit, Greens, and the Social Democrats). This level of cooperation suggests a possible left-wing coalition for the next general election, a scenario that undoubtedly must keep Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil up at night.
However, one thing to consider is that these parties are not homogeneous in terms of policy, and there may be genuine fault lines in terms of ideology, for example, People Before Profits' decision to not include both Greens and Labour in a vote left, transfer left pact for the 2024 local elections due to past associations with both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil.
Regardless, such a landslide victory as was seen for Connolly may incentivise these parties for further collaboration, especially given how effective the Connolly campaign was at mobilising youth support with the ‘Youth for Connolly’ campaign.
This movement, if harnessed properly, has the potential to shape voting behaviour and government structure for the next generation.
Note: Aoife Kilbane McGowan also writes for The University Observer