Teflon Taoiseach

28 May 2007



Irish Voters Give Ahern Third Term

It took a few days to count the ballots thanks to Ireland’s system of proportional representation, but it was hardly as lengthy, messy or controversial as Florida’s count in 2000. At the end of the day, Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern won a third term from Irish voters. The only question is which minor party or parties will his Fianna Fail party invite into the coalition. His previous allies, the Progressive Democrats lost seats, and the Greens may take the new coalition in a slightly different direction than the previous government. Regardless, Mr. Ahern has done the improbable.

A visitor to Ireland today wouldn’t recognize it as the country it was just two decades ago. Whether Mr. Ahern’s Fianna Fail governments are responsible is a matter of debate, but he was the man in charge when the Celtic Tiger roared, and so his party gets the votes in gratitude. In this particular election, that came at the expense of the smaller parties that the single transferable voting system encourages. Indeed, Sinn Fein was supposed to have made a breakthrough on the strength of the recent peace deal in Northern Ireland, but it wound up losing a seat. Only the big opposition Fine Gael party improved its position.

For the Irish media, the re-election of the Taoiseach is a bit of a stunner. Mr. Ahern ran into some trouble over his financial activities, and the media scenting a Watergate sort of scandal ran with it. As Lorna Reid of the Irish Independent wrote, “It began as a seemingly simple probe into the rezoning of land for a shopping centre in west Dublin. But the Mahon Tribunal has now mushroomed into a full-blown examination of the private finances of Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.” Mushrooms tend to be small things. In the end, the voters didn’t seem to care as much as the pundits – which is a lesson for all democracies and critics therein.

Out of the 166 seats in the Dail (as the lower house of the Irish Parliament is known), Fianna Fail won 78, just 5 short of an outright majority. :Labour with 20 seats is ideologically tough for Mr. Ahern to consider as a partner. Meanwhile, the Greens earned six, independent candidates five, Sinn Fein four, and the pro-business Progressive Democrats have two. Mathematically, the Greens have to be the favorites, but they want to limit road building (in a nation gone car-crazy), end corporate donations to political parties (see Mr. Ahern’s troubles above) and invest more in buses and trains (to make up for the road policy).

What has been most interesting in the development of Irish politics over the last couple of years is the loyalty and enthusiasm Mr. Ahern’s party has won from the under-25s. A late surge from this demographic group ensured him of extra seats. If they stay happy with Fianna Fail, the party could dominate Ireland’s political landscape for a lot longer.

© Copyright 2007 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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