Irish General Election 2016: Political uncertainty on the menu

Well, this is one of those situations where a story is going to run and run and run, and who knows what the outcome will be at the end of it. 

We still have 13 seats unfilled at this point, and no partty has got even 50 seats.  Here's the state of play.

Fine Gael - 46 - Still the largest party, but with a lot less seats this time.
Fianna Fail - 42 - Much improved performance.
Sinn Fein - 22 - Best performance ever.
Independents - 15 - The big unknown factor in this equation.
Labour - 6 - They need one more seat to hold onto their speaking privileges.
Anti-Austerity Alliance - 5 - Could be one of the keys to government for FF and FG.
Independent Alliance - 4 - Another unknown here, but definitely not to be ignored.
Social Democrats - 3 - These guys made a good start, but now they have to work as TDs
Green Party - 2 - Back in the Dail, and we'll see how that goes.

Renua Ireland was the higest profile party not to get a seat. 

The Labour Party in Ireland, could be going through their own Liberal Democrat moment.  Joan Burton could become like Nick Clegg.  They've suffered a big loss at the polls, and Joan Burton's future as leader is hanging by the proverbial thread. 

But even Fine Gael might not be in the clear yet.  Dependent on how things go in coalition negotiations, the future of Enda Kenny's leadership may also be in question.

All in all, this story still has a long way to run, and expect Dublin's ISEQ to be significantly down on Monday, as markets hate uncertainty.

Irish General Election 2016: Into Day 3

Day 1 was the day the votes were cast.  Day 2 was when the counting began.  Now we're into Day 3 of this, and we do have the first preference counts from all 40 consituencies, so now we know what the official share of the first preference vote is, and it goes like this...

Fine Gael - 25.5% - 10.6% lower than in 2011
Fianna Fail - 24.3% - 6.9% higher than in 2011
Sinn Fein - 13.8% - 3.9 higher than in 2011
Independents - 13.0% - 0.4% higher than in 2011
Labour - 6.6% - 12.8% lower than in 2011
Independent Alliance - 4.2% - New party in this election.
Anti-Austerity Alliance - 3.9% - Wasn't in this current form in 2011.
Social Democrats - 3.0% - New party in this election.
Green Party - 2.7% - 0.9% higher than in 2011
Renua Ireland - 2.2% - New party in this election.
Others - 0.7% - 2.0% lower than in 2011

So what do these figures tell us?  Well, first of all, it tells us the governing parties of Fine Gael and Labour took a spanking at these elections, both losing significant share of the first preference vote.  Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein do look to be the big winners, both making significant gains on their 2011 position.  But ultimately Fianna Fail must be disappointed.  They must have felt they had a chance to overtake Fine Gael, as the tide seemed to slowly turn against the governing parties.  But they didn't quite capitalise on it.

However it must be said, they did far better than the opinion polls suggested.  In fact, in the run up, the opinion polls were way off.

Date	Source/Link	Polling Agency	FG	Lab	FF	SF	AAA -PBP	RI	SD	GP	Others
26 February 2016	General election	N/A	25.5	6.6	24.3	13.8	3.9	2.2	3.0	2.7	17.9
26 February 2016	RTÉ[p 1]	Behaviour & Attitudes	24.8	7.1	21.1	16.0	4.7	2.4	3.7	3.6	16.6
26 February 2016	The Irish Times[p 2]	Ipsos MRBI	26.1	7.8	22.9	14.9	3.6	2.3	2.8	3.5	16.1
25 February 2016	TheJournal[p 3]	DIT	32	8	20	15	2	2	4	2	14
23 February 2016	Paddy Power[p 4][p 5]	Red C	30	7	20	15	3	2	4	3	16[nb 2]
22 February 2016	The Irish Times[p 6]	Ipsos MRBI	28	6	23	15	3	2	3	2	18[nb 3]
21 February 2016	Sunday Independent[p 7][p 8]	Millward Brown	27	6	23	19	5	2	4	2	14[nb 4]
21 February 2016	The Sunday Business Post[p 9][p 10]	Red C	30	8	18	16	3	2	4	4	15[nb 5]
21 February 2016	The Sunday Times[p 11][p 12]	Behaviour & Attitudes	30	4	22	15	5	3	3	3	15[nb 6]

This table came from Wikipedia, where I found all the polling data over the last 5 years, but I focused on the last week of the campaign.  Fine Gael's support was overestimated, quite significantly.  Sinn Fein's support was often over-estimated too.  Fianna Fail was underestimated, as were the others in this list, the Independents and the parties not listed in the polling data, including the Independent Alliance.

You can understand how disappointed Fine Gael feel, especially if they trusted this data to be accurate.  In some cases, the +/- 3.0% margin of error still left a gross over-estimation of support.

So, what does that mean in terms of seats?  Well seats are not filled by first preference votes alone in this election, but a number of Fianna Fail candidates did win on First preference votes alone, getting over the quota line without supplementaries.  Right now as I write this, 95 of the 158 have been filled, and the state of play is this.

Fine Gael - 28
Fianna Fail - 28
Sinn Fein - 13
Independents - 10
Labour - 4
Anti-Austerity Alliance - 4
Independent Alliance - 4
Social Democrats - 3
Green Party - 1
Renua Ireland - 0
Others - 0

Doing some quick percentage maths, that means that currently, both Fine Gael and Fianna Fail are on course to win 47 seats each.  Not even 50 seats.  I actually expect them to make the 50 seat level but just barely.  I think a few more seats could go to the minor parties, Sinn Fein and Labour, and maybe a couple more Independents, but it's difficult to know exactly how many will go to which party. 

What we do know is that it's squeaky bum time.  Every seat declaration today will be watched with great interest as both Enda Kenny and Micheal Martin will be trying to work out who they can do deals with to secure a majority, and ultimately, whether they could work out a deal with each other to keep Sinn Fein out of power.

Irish General Election 2016: On the Nightbeat.

At this point in proceedings we're still missing 2 first counts out of the 40 constituencies, but a clearer picture is starting to emerge.  As I write this, these are the numbers of TD's elected per party.

Fianna Fail - 18
Fine Gael - 12
Sinn Fein - 6
Social Democrats - 3
Independents - 3
Anti-Austerity Alliance - 2
Independent Alliance - 2
Labour - 1
Green Party - 1
Renua Ireland - 0
Others - 0

That's with 48 of the 158 seats filled in Dail Eireann.

By contrast, Dublin Central is on its 10th round of counting, in order to try to fill the remaining 2 available seats.

The strange thing is, that at the start of this election, there were a lot of concerns about the new party Renua.  How were they going to shake things up?  Turns out, they really haven't, with a mere 2.2% of first preference votes. 

The big developments came from Sinn Fein, and on a more modest scale, the Social Democrats, the Anti-Austerity Alliance, and the Independent Alliance.  All have made significant progress.  The Green Party have returned to the Dail, though whether they will pick up any more seats at this election is at this point dubious, but not impossible.

If there is to be a coalition, it's likely to be a grand coalition of at least 3 different parties and maybe more.  Both Fianna Fail and Fine Gael have said they won't work with Sinn Fein, so it will depend on just how close Fianna Fail and Fine Gael get to 80 seats, the number required for a majority, but the strongest likelihood seems to be a Fianna Fail/Fine Gael coalition, if neither party is anywhere near close enough to the 80 seat mark.

Once we know the exact shape or close enough to it, to actually have a good sense of the numbers, I'll write more about this. 

Meanwhile, one small point on this.  The polls closed at 10pm last night.  They didn't start counting, until 9am this morning.  That's 11 hours that was lost.  This whole process could be almost over by this point, if they had started counting last night straight after the polls close, as we do. Instead right now, we're heading into a late night, and the possibility of results not being known until Sunday evening.  And even then, when the markets open Monday morning in Dublin, the ISEQ will probably go downwards as there will be little idea what kind of political future will await the Irish Republic.  I do think we're in for a few days, maybe weeks of political uncertainty, at a time when Ireland's relationship with both the UK and the EU, will be under a lot of scrutiny on both sides of the Irish Sea.

Irish General Election 2016: Saturday Evening Roundup

Okay, as I write this, this is the state of the parties right now.

Fine Gael: 3
Labour : 0
Fianna Fail: 12
Sinn Fein: 2
Social Democrats: 3
Independent Alliance: 2
Independents: 1

Turnout for this election was a paltry 65%, which to my view is pathetic.  7 out of every 20 people in Ireland didn't even do their duty by voting in this election.

We've had 28 first ballot counts in out of the 40 constituencies, but only Laois constituency has completed counting and elected all their required representatives, in their case, 3.

Sean Fleming - Fianna Fail
Brian Stanley - Sinn Fein
Charlie Flanagan - Fine Gael

The share of the first preference vote for the various parties at this time looks like this:

Fine Gael: 26.1%
Fianna Fail: 25.1%
Sinn Fein: 12.6%
Independents: 10.7%
Labour: 6.9%
Anti-Austerity Alliance: 4.5%
Independent Alliance: 4.4%
Social Democrats: 3.9%
Green Party: 2.9%
Renua Ireland: 2.1%
Others: 0.8%

We've still got a long way to go before we get even a clear indication of what is happening here, but so far, it looks like Fine Gael may have held a little more ground than we initially though, but Fianna Fail is definitely gaining ground.

At this point, the former Taniaste Joan Burton of Labour, stands a fair chance of holding her seat, she is currently third after the 3rd count, with only one seat out of the four currently filled.  It depends on how the supplementary votes for the winning candidate will be dividied up in the next count.

Another update later.

Irish General Election: Saturday Afternoon Roundup

Well, we've only had one seat filled, which has gone to Fine Gael's Sean Barrett.  But all indications from the tallies that we've been getting via twitter and live blogs, seem to suggest that there are some significant changes on the way in Irish Politics.

Most of the first counts are expected between about  4pm and 7pm, with either eliminated candidates, or those who pass the 'quota', that is to say the minimum number of votes required to win a seat in the constituency, which is different depending on constituency size and turnout, their 'supplementary votes', votes of the other preferences below first preference, will then be counted to help determine who else is elected from that constituency. 

It is a complex and slightly esoteric system of electing a parliament, but it's that kind of quirkiness that gives it its appeal, in my eyes.  The Single Transferable Vote system allows for a less predictable election result, especially in situations like this where you have multiple parties, and multiple candidates sometimes from the same party, battling over a limited number of seats.

The Single Transferable Vote would be quite workable here in the UK too, as it could be made to work in single seat constituencies.  The quota just becomes a straight 50% +1 vote of the total number of votes cast, and candidates would be eliminated from the bottom upwards, until we got a candidate over that threshold.

So, the declarations will shortly actually begin, and we'll get official word on who has actually been elected.  More on this later.

Irish General Election 2016: The Exit Poll.

Well, it's not long now until the counting actually begins in the election.  Counts begin at 9am, but at 7am, on a special Saturday edition of Morning Ireland on RTE Radio 1 and RTE News Now, RTE released the result of their exit poll.

A small reminder that these are first preference votes that are asked about, as the system of voting is Single Transferable Vote, which ranks candidates by preference.

Fine Gael, who were the largest party in 2011 with 36.1, have lost almost a third of their previous vote, to now be at 24.8%.  This still makes them the largest party, but with a much reduced vote.  Second place goes to Fianna Fail, which has increased their vote from 17.4% in 2011, to 21.1% in this exit poll. 

Sinn Fein have made a huge gain in this election, from 9.9% in 2011, to 16% in this exit poll. 

Independents make up the 4th largest group this time around with 11%.  Labour, who were coalition partners in 2011 with a huge 19.4% of the vote, have dropped down to 5th place this time with just 7.1% in this exit poll.

This means we could be looking at a Fine Gail/Fianna Fail coalition, which would have been unthinkable in any prior government before, with Sinn Fein being the leaders of the opposition.  The equivalent in the UK, would be a Labour/Conservative coalition. 

I do think there might be some resistance to the idea of a Fine Gael/Fianna Fail coalition, the idea of old enenmies working together might be too much to bear for some, but it does mean that we are in a new era for Irish politics.

And remember this poll was for first preference votes only.  How this translates down the line into seats is anyone's guess, due to the fact that the preferences below first preference are what will ultimately decide who gets elected, and who does not.

We'll keep an eye on the counting, which is starting shortly, and will post updates here on the blog during the day, and probably tomorrow as well, as we finally work out just how the Irish public have voted to fill the 157 seats in 40 constituencies that will make up the new Dail Eireann.

Viewpoint Extra: John McNulty & The Seanad

In a post on Monday, I referenced a scandal that had been breaking for a while over a prospective candidate for the Seanad, the upper house of Ireland’s parliament, called John McNulty, who was standing for the Fine Gael party. 

Well yesterday, John McNulty, withdrew his candidacy for the Seanad.  There’s one problem though, the ballot papers have already been printed, so his name can’t actually be removed from the ballot.

Fair enough, there is a situation where he could be elected, but if that ends up happening, all he’d have to do is announce a resignation, and there would be a new ballot held for that seat, simple enough.

The whole situation was a mess.  But I fully expect that Fianna Fail’s Micheal Martin will try to milk this for everything it’s worth, but as it has no worth at all, and as I said on Monday, political points are worthless and meaningless, I don’t see this causing Enda Kenny any further problems.  

Fair Or Foul: A new type of post here on Viewpoint.

We’re making some changes to our blog, and introducing different styles of posts here at Viewpoint.  One of these, is the one I’m going to introduce to you right here, it’s called Fair Or Foul, and it goes like this.

I will post about some of the stories that have caught my attention, either the story, a statement from a company, or a quote from a person, or something similar, and I will rate them on the following scale.

FAIR – The story, quote or statement is fair or seems to be fair.

FOUL – The story, quote or statement is not fair, but it’s not a serious foul, there’s nothing egregious about it.

FOUL, Yellow Card – The story, quote or statement is not fair, and is serious enough to earn a Yellow Card warning for unfairness.

FOUL, Red Card – The story, quote or statement is so unfair, egregiously so, that it would warrant a ‘sending off’.

After each rating, I will explain what about the story, quote or statement has persuaded me to give them that rating.

So, having explained all that, let me give you a few examples so you get how the ‘game’ is played.

BBC News: Young people out of work for more than six months face losing access to jobseeker's allowance (JSA) if the Conservatives win the next election.  Fair or Foul?

FOUL, Red Card.

No two ways about it, this is a red card offence.  The Conservatives have been trying to force people to work for their dole money for years now, and every time they come out with this idea, it gets so much grief, and rightfully so, that they have to hide it away again until they can find another way to dress it up and try to make it look respectable.

There’s nothing respectable about underpaying for people doing work, especially "community projects", which is Tory code, for menial jobs that they wouldn’t be prepared to do themselves.  Good leaders, lead by example, not by forcing people to work for their benefits, and effectively working to criminalise unemployment.  This all stems from having the basic attitude of “those who can’t find work are basically workshy and don’t want to work”.  That isn’t necessarily the case at all, but because of programmes like Benefits Street, where you encountered people who went around with the attitude of “Oh, the world owes me a living.”, you’ve ended up with the public having a very distorted view of what it means to be unemployed.  And the Tories are trying to take advantage of that, to criminalise the unemployed.  That will not win you votes, especially from those who ARE unemployed, or who have recently been unemployed, whether they have found a job, or gone the self employed route.

The Tories should just drop this whole idea of criminalising the unemployed, and instead try to find ways to enable easier startup of small businesses, and cut the massive amounts of red tape out of small business startup and self-employment.  It will be more beneficial, than criminalising people because they haven’t got a job.

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Emma Watson: “It is time that we all see gender as a spectrum instead of two sets of opposing ideals. We should stop defining each other by what we are not and start defining ourselves by who we are.”  Fair or Foul?

FAIR

Emma Watson on Saturday launched a campaign called HeForShe at the United Nations in New York, which aims to promote gender equality to men, and change the perspective of feminism from being seen as one about hating men, to one about gender equality.

I can honestly say that I have always thought that feminism was about equality, not about man-hating, which is something completely different, despite what misogynists like Rush Limbaugh think and say on the air.  Gender equality is something we should all get behind.  I have made my commitment, I urge all men to do the same, go to the website, and take a stand for gender equality.

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Micheal Murphy TD: “What exactly is he apologising for?  Is the Taoiseach now admitting that he instructed Minister Heather Humphreys to appoint Mr McNulty in support of his Seanad candidacy?… …This goes to the heart of the scandal and requires a full statement in Dáil Éireann from the Taoiseach outlining the entire sequence of events from the beginning to the end of this shabby affair."  Fair or Foul?

FOUL

This is just another example of politics as usual that you can find almost anywhere around the world.  In this case, the contretemps is over the appointment of prospective Fine Gael senator to the board of the Irish Museum of Modern Art.  The thought is that the appointment was done to help his Senatorial candidacy.  The accusation is basically cronyism.  But we have seen this accusation thrown about so many times, in many different countries, and really, what would a statement in Dail Eireann really do, other than just give Michael Murphy a chance to try to humiliate the Taoiseach, and score more political points, which are ultimately, meaningless? 

I’ve said this many times, but politics should be about problem solving, not point scoring.  It should be about coming together in the centre, not pulling people to the extremities.  Instead of becoming two tribes, we should be coming together as human beings.  I’m often reminded of the Frankie Goes To Hollywood song, Two Tribes, from 1984, the video of which featured impersonators of US President Ronald Reagan, and Soviet premier Konstantin Chernenko brawling and wrestling each other in front of a rabid crowd.  But one lyric from that song keep coming back to me in these situations.

“When two tribes go to war, a point is all that you can score.”

And political points, are worthless and meaningless.

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The Local: The Spanish government has said Catalonia would not be allowed to hold an independence referendum, shortly after the region's leader set a November 9 date for the vote.  Fair or Foul?

FOUL, Yellow Card.

Apparently, the Spanish Government has forgotten what kind of country it is governing.  It is a country made up of 19 autonomous regions, two of those are cities.  Each autonomous region has their own parliament, can make their own laws, and each is a democracy of its own. 

Catalonia is one of a few autonomous regions that has significantly more powers than most other regions, amongst those powers, is for the regional president to dissolve parliament and call elections, and if Catalonia is blocked from holding a referendum on independence, it could well be that Catalonia turns it into an election issue, and make independence the centrepiece of an election campaign, and for the Spanish national government, that would be a much bigger headache, than a mere referendum.

The Spanish government, look like they’re afraid that they are going to lose, and that might be true, but instead of looking like scaredy-cats, and running to the Spanish Constitutional Court to get the vote ruled unconstitutional, which is what they’ll try and do, they should actually let the vote happen, and let things take their course, and if something goes wrong, be ready to welcome them back into the Spanish fold with open arms.  This is starting to look like an enforced empire, rather than a collective of people that want to work together.  And by extension, it is also making the European Union look like an attempt at empire building, rather than the Community that it was when the UK joined in 1973.   

In saying that “…no-one is above the national will of all Spaniards…”, you look like enforcers of something that maybe, the people of Catalonia don’t want anymore, and maybe, other regions of Spain, might not like it either, and might not want to be a part of it.  If you cannot respect the will of the Catalonian people, why should other regions want to be part of Spain either?  You do yourself no favours by starting to appear dictatorial, rather than democratic.

Hence, the yellow card, as a warning that trying to dictate what can and can’t be done, by a democratic, devolved region of your own country, is likely to lead to the breakup, not just of Spain, but potentially of other countries too, and possibly by extension, the breakup of the European Union, as people decide they don’t want to be a part of any elected government, that decides it can become dictatorial when it likes.

Viewpoint Election Special – They think it’s all over…

Despite the fact that the media have moved on to other stories, the European Elections are still not quite over.  Ian Beaumont looks at where we are, and rounds up the facts and figures from this European Election.

Viewpoint Election Special – European Elections

The European Election results have been much slower to declare tonight than was originally planned.  Recorded after 1am in the morning, Ian Beaumont reviews developments to this point.

Viewpoint Election Special – Ireland’s Councils take shape.

As the shape of Ireland's City and County Counicl's become clearer, it looks like the councils have lost their "Green" fingers!  Ian Beaumont reviews developments.

Viewpoint Election Special – Ireland’s Local Elections

Ireland Votes 2007: Update

Well, the results so far are looking promising for Bertie Ahern who looks like gaining a third term as the Taoiseach. Currently the state of the parties is...

Fianna Fail - 54
Fine Gael - 25
Labour - 10
Green Party - 3
Sinn Fein - 2
Progressive Democrats - 1
Others - 2

Ireland Votes 2007: The Taoiseach is Re-elected

In the Dublin Central constituency, they are on their 3rd count, but elected after the first count was the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, so he is safe and at the moment,looks like returning to the equivalent position of Prime Minister, after this election.

Nearby in Dublin South East, another Progressive Democrat TD, Michael McDowell has been ousted, and he has announced that he is leaving politics as a result. The polarisation of Irish Politics continues, as Fianna Fail and Fine Gael gain the seats that smaller parties would normally have gotten. It looks like Ireland is returning to what was known as the "2 and a half party system".

Ireland Votes 2007: Fast Start for Fianna Fail

So far, out of the 44 seats declared, 31 have gone to Fianna Fail. Now, because this is STV (single transferable vote), everything can still change, because every constituency has 3, 4, 5 or more seats available, not just one as it is in the UK. This means that Fine Gael can still beat Fianna Fail if enough transferable votes in either 2nd or 3rd preference was cast.

So, whilst the indications are currently good for Bertie Ahern, they may not stay that way. However, the turnout is reported to be up on the 63% turnout in 2007.

Ireland Votes 2007: Story So Far...

Well, I'm joining the coverage late, due to having to do other work today but the story so far seems to be that the major parties are doing well and the minor parties not so well.

All indications are pointing to the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, gaining a record third term in office.

At the moment, Fianna Fail have 26 seats, Fine Gael have 5, the Labour Party (nothing to do with Tony Blair) have 3 seats, whilst Progressive Democrats, Sinn Fein and the Green Party all have one seat each, as well as one 'other' party. I'll try and find out if that is an Independent or not as I go on.

Coverage continues on RTE One, if you can recieve it, or live online at www.rte.ie/live/ . In the UK, RTE's coverage can be seen on BBC Parliament. There is also radio coverage on RTE Radio 1, and if you can understand Gaelic, also on TG4 and RTE RnaG.