sirenianshores

I must admit it’s been quite hard to get worked up about who wins the next Irish General election. I could describe myself as being indifferent about whoever wins for the simple reason that I think nothing much is going to change either way due to the similarity of the main political parties and the consensus nature of Irish politics.

On one side you’ve got the ruling coalition of parties: Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats. While I tend to respect the PD’s for their libertarian economic policies and their liberal views on social/personnal matters, they along with their coalition partners have probably been in power for far too long than is healthy for the Irish political system. Fianna Fail of course are rotten and corrupt and out of fresh ideas. They are also guilty of unforgivable mismanagement of public works projects like the port tunnel and the Luas public transit system. As far as personalities within the party are concerned, I’ve always found the idea of the current Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, being ‘a man of the people’ as laughable. Fianna fall backbenchers are much too beholden to special interest groups like the Vintners Association.

The PD leader, Michael MacDowell, is a lightning rod for negative opinion on the ruling coalition’s performance - especially for those critics on the left. I think MacDowell enraging being left is ultimately a good thing. The more angry they become, the more likely they will be to get up off their arses and offer some sort of viable, realistic alternative. Watching the insults fly back and forth between MacDowell and his opponents on the left is of course amusing to no end. They denounce him as a fascist. Playing on the fact that he bears a passing resemblance to Heinrich Himmler. He fights back by taunting the left as a bunch of ’sandal wearing, muesli eaters’. I actually tend to agree with much of what MacDowell states publicly. My main concern is his inability to put his money where his (big) mouth is and deliver on what he claims to stand for.

On the other side: Fine Gael, the Labour Party and the Greens who aren’t much better and do such a miserable job of playing the opposition role, that it raises some hard questions about their suitability for government.

The moderate right wing Fine Gael, is led by the nice-but-useless, Enda Kenny. Actually I take that back - he can’t be all that nice if he isn’t bloody well willing to support his own constituents against a pillaging foreign corporation - as the Shell to Sea controversy in county Mayo has shown.

The left wing Labour party is populated by far too many smug, politically correct, Irish-Times reading, abortion supporting/baby killing, middle-class liberals, like Ivana Batcik, who make me feel like putting my boot through my television screen every time I see her face, even when I actually agree with what she is saying. She can even criticize George Bush and end up make him look like a sympathetic character by the smug, self-righteous tone of her rhetoric. I think elections are often decided by not so much on who you like best, but who you hate the least.

The junior partners in the coalition, the Greens, as always, get my respect for pursuing the worthy cause of protecting our environment. Their economic policies tend to veer towards the nuttier end of the left wing end political spectrum and the traditional opposition towards all forms of nuclear power. I am increasingly beginning to think that nuclear power may be the lesser of a number of vehicles on comps to reducing the overall level of pollution and greenhouse gases emitted.

Economically the two sides are virtually identical (the economic policies of the Greens can be safely ignored) - no political party at this stage is going to tamper with the American-style, Neo-Liberal economic policies which have generated enormous wealth in Ireland during the last two decades. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it as the man said.

I suspect what it may ultimately come down to in choosing between the two coalitions is deciding which one happens to be worse than the other. With Fine Gael threatening this week to drag the Irish political system further down into the gutter by adopting American-style, personalised, negative campaigning tactics, the odds for their side are not looking good. They may well end up shooting themselves in the foot and making their intended targets in Fianna Fail and the PD’s look like victims. Bertie Ahern’s performance in handling the bribes controversy should be a lesson to them. The Teflon Taoiseach and his advisers spun the situation quite well – Ahern’s accomplished performance under the media spotlight made him look like a sympathetic character, while the opposition looked increasingly flustered and toothless as the controversy dragged down. The more they tried to attack Bertie, the more cynical the Irish public became off their motives.

The others:
Sinn Fein may have long since ditched their balaclavas for Armani suits, but they are still radioactive in my book and always will be for their association with terrorism. Their economic policies are well past their sell by date - nothing much aside from the standard Marxist fare.

Socialist workers party - I might not necessarily want them running an economy, but they are sometimes worth a protest vote when I’m fed up with the mainstream parties. They also do great work on issues that most of the mainstream parties tend to ignore - like the Shell to Sea campaign and the anti-war protests.

Independents
Independents are always a great fall-back, even if you don’t necessarily agree with many of their political views.

Socialist independent candidates like Joe Higgins and Tony Gregory have done sterling work over the years and are always worth voting for. They have my utmost respect.

Jackie Healy-Rae - a candidate from my own neck of the woods. He is what Americans might term a ‘redneck’ or a ‘hick’ or what we would call a ‘culchie’. Being someone from outside the Pale myself, it is with great pleasure that I cast a vote his way. The sight of a country bumpkin like him sticking it to the political and media elites in Dublin is just too much of a good opportunity to pass up. For a while the coalition government needed is vote as an independent member of Parliament to give them the numbers to gain a parliament majority. His support wasn’t required during the last election cycle, but it may well be this time round.

On foreign candidates:
During the last round of local elections, I noticed a number of foreigners settled here running for seats. I can think of no better way for immigrants to integrate themselves into Irish society by giving them a stake in the democratic process. In fact, even if you do not agree with their stance on certain issues, I think there is an argument to be made for voting for on them on pragmatic grounds. This might hopefully help facilitate their integration into our society and avoid the immigration debacle other European countries like France and Britain have had.