Catherine Connolly’s landslide victory in Ireland’s presidential election is a stunning political feat that humiliates the establishment but does not signify a national swerve to the left.
There was nothing inevitable about her triumph, let alone its scale. In July, when she declared her candidacy, she was a one-woman act: an independent leftwing member of parliament from Galway who was unfamiliar to most voters.
Yet the 68-year-old won backing from a hodgepodge of small opposition parties – the Social Democrats, People Before Profit, Labour – and then a big one, Sinn Féin – which decided to not run its own candidate – in a rare show of unity from the usually fractious left.
Even then Connolly seemed an outside bet. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, the two ruling centre-right parties that have dominated Irish politics for a century, each fielded their own candidate. Under electoral rules, voters select candidates in order of preference, so if one candidate was eliminated, transfers were expected to help the other establishment figure across the line.
Instead, a collision of events turned Connolly, who speaks so softly you need to lean in to hear her, into political thunder. She won 64% of votes – an across-the-board sweep of villages and cities and, above all, the young.
So for the next seven years Ireland will have a head of state who believes in equality and ring-fencing Irish neutrality from what she calls western “militarism” and genocide enablement. In Britain some have compared Connolly to Jeremy Corbyn and marvel – or groan – that an EU state has veered left when so many other countries have drifted right or far-right.
The election however does not fit such neat packaging. It is, no mistake, an earthquake that shakes the authority and confidence of the government and bolsters the possibility of a leftwing alliance at the next general election. But it does not represent an ideological shift.
The presidency is a largely ceremonial office. Mary Robinson turned it into a more visible platform, and Mary McAleese and Michael D Higgins continued that trend, but whomever occupies Áras an Uachtaráin, the residence in the Phoenix Park, is very constrained.
Voters twice elected Higgins – himself an outspoken leftwinger from Galway – but gave executive power to successive coalitions dominated by Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil. Connolly can highlight topics, set a tone, make symbolic gestures, perhaps skirmish with the government on policy issues, but she will be bound by the constitution, and has promised to respect those limits.
There is a perception outside Ireland that Connolly will be a Sinn Féin instrument for a united Ireland. The party’s formidable resources and electoral organisation aided her but Connolly has shown little interest in unification and the issue barely featured in the campaign. She is her own woman and does her own thing – as Labour, her former party, discovered when she broke away and was elected to the Dáil as an independent in 2016.
after newsletter promotion
Connolly’s supporters are passionate and speak of a movement. It’s conceivable that opposition parties, having tasted victory, will cohere into a viable government-in-waiting. But two factors should temper talk of a breakthrough.
The ruling parties sabotaged themselves. Fianna Fáil ran a political newbie, Jim Gavin, who floundered and dropped out of the race over a financial scandal. The late withdrawal meant his name remained on the ballot but party loyalists had little incentive to vote – or, crucially, give a second preference to the other establishment candidate.
Fine Gael’s original candidate, Mairead McGuinness, dropped out, citing health problems, so the party turned to Heather Humphreys, banking on centrist appeal and rural wholesomeness; but voters found her insipid.
For all the nimbleness of Connolly’s campaign, including viral videos that showed her doing keepy-uppies, her opponents’ blunders paved the victory and the left cannot assume a repeat.
The other factor is that most people did not vote – turnout was estimated to be about 46%, reflecting widespread indifference – and a record number intentionally spoiled their vote, reflecting frustration at the lack of alternative candidates. Some lamented the lack of a social conservative, others complained that nobody reflected their concern over immigration.
Connolly earned her landslide but not everyone is cheering.
