So exactly what happened to fg?

nesf

I know the opinions of ppl in my area, Cork North-West, but I'd be very interested to hear veiws on why ppl think the huge misfortune of fine gael, with a 5% loss resulting in 20ish seats lost. Or thereabouts.

Any opinions?

dahamsta

I think lack of confidence in Noonan was at the core of it to be honest. He doesn't appear to have confidence in himself, and he doesn't come across as a statesman. Of course Bertie was much the same way a few years ago, but in a different way - he was very much a man of the people.

I think Noonan could have pulled it off with a little clever handling, but it's all for nowt now. I'll be watching the leadership battle with interest. Alan Dukes is gone, unfortunately; Bruton is saying he won't go for it (thank the gods); and the front-line man Mitchell is gone too. The next few days should be interesting.

I'd like to see Coveney go for it, but I'm not sure whether that's even possible.

adam

rymus

What can be said? Other than nobody wanted to vote for them of course! That and Noonan's posters made him look quite evil. Many of the people I have spoken to over the last few weeks thought that he would make very bad Taoiseach and quickly send the country downhill.

It would have been nice for them to gain more seats than they have (26 at present) but alas, that is not to be this time.

Obviously Fianna Fail have a larger 'fanbase' than Fine Gael do. Either that or the Fine Gael people didnt bother to come out and vote.

sceptre

FF do have a bigger long-term fanbase as well.

Totally corrrectable on this, but imho about 25-30% of the electorate will vote for FF regardless of their policies (in other words, if the leader said he flays sheep and eats them raw as a sacrifice they'd still get this vote). They've made the decision at some point in their lives that FF are the best party. A lot of the time, that has to do with a "family vote" type thing but not always.

FG's core "always voted for Fine Gael and I always will" is a lot less, as low as 12-15% I think (even less in the years when they decide they're a lefty party).

There's also a group of people who may or may not vote for Fine Gael but won't ever ever vote for FF. Hard to tell what this figure is, but I suspect about 10-15%.

The "others" probably have a core "never voting for anyone else" of up to 10% (mostly Labour (or at least "socialist", to an extent SF)

Adding all the larger figures up makes 70% (and that even seems a little low). That gives us a total floating vote for the country of 30%. These are the people who make all the difference in the seats that change hands.

This election, FG picked up very little of that free-flowing vote. Even their national vote transfer strategy was even more inferior than normal compared with FF's.

Cork NW is a good example of both the declining FG vote and lack of proper strategy - and good strategy for FF - Cork NW would have been regarded as a 2FG1FF constituency for years - although some of the constituency changes over the years have tilted the balance in the favour of FF, notably in the area southeast of Bweeng towards Blarney - some hardcore FF country areas added there) (I'm not accusing anyone of gerrymandering, it's just the way the cookie crumbles).

FG just aren't regarded as a force in Irish politics at the moment. Mary Harney's call to ensure a coalition government probably also tilted the balance on a few seats.

Shinji

FF does indeed have a large core vote of "I vote FF because my daddy did" people, which helps them in every election. FG has always had a smaller core vote like this, and it's dwindling; ironically because the FG core voters tend to be (speaking from my own experience, not statistics) more well to do and educated people, and hence more likely to reconsider their vote in the light of events of recent years than FF voters are.

FG has failed to present a viable choice to voters, and more importantly, as a party they have failed utterly to present a credible opposition to the FF/PD government. Noonan, as a leader, is a disaster, but this cannot be blamed entirely on him. FG's election strategies were also disastrous, but again the blame does not lie entirely there. The fact is that Fine Gael has not been a political force in Irish politics over the past three to four years; they have not dogged or questioned the government like an opposition party is meant to do, and they have failed miserably at pressing home the considerable advantages open to them.

Sleaze is a primary consideration here; there's no doubt that FF could have been pinned to the wall over and over again on sleaze, because - quite frankly - they've got a lot of crooks in their ranks. FG however seemed incapable of pressing this issue, and it's obvious why; because they've got just as many skeletons in the closet themselves, and they're terrified that if they start into FF, FF will bite back.

The demolition of FG at this election is a good thing and a bad thing. It's a good thing because it probably spells the end of the ridiculous civil war divisions which have dominated Irish politics for decades; it spells the end to a system where both of our main parties actually believed the same things about most issues. It may mean that we will soon have a proper set of parties, divided along right-left and liberal-conservative lines. Thank god for that.

However, in the short term, it means that we're without a coherent opposition in the next term - unless the random parties in opposition REALLY make the effort to pull together and make sense of the situation early on, which I doubt. The prospect of FF being able to run things as they desire, unchecked, for the next four years is a scary one; we all know there are big decisions to be made and hurdles to overcome in the next term of office, and I don't think anyone can seriously believe that FF will make all the right decisions if left to their own devices. Anyone see The Economist's report on benchmarking yesterday, for a start?

Victor

Originally posted by Shinji
FF does indeed have a large core vote of "I vote FF because my daddy did" people

There is also the "we have a moral imperative to rule" and "we are short-sighted and stupid but power hungry" groups.

nesf

In responce to the point on Crok NW, I live in the area, and tbh the main reason that Creed wasn't elected was that his supporters spent time going around saying to vote for the other fg candidate, as Creed will pull through in round 1 anyways.


It was just bad vote management,, combined with a lower voter turn-out. But it's interesting to note that there are no "little" patry candidates in Cork NW, as much as i would love to see a green candidate, there isn't one. It's basically a ff fg and lab choice. Personally I went labour, but it's a very tradidtional area, and ppl do tend to vote as they always have.

Rufus T Firefly

I think the problem is that Fine Gael have no definable place to live in Irish politics at the moment. For a long time they had the field pretty much to themselves as the alternative government on the off-chance that people might actually not want FF in government for eternity. Their main virtue in life seemed to consist of not being FF.

These days, while there is still not much ideological clear water between many of the parties - in fact precious little political ideology at all - there is at least a choice. The PDs will mop up the socially liberal vote, Labour will offer a salve to the conscience, SF will appeal to the disenfranchised and FF will continue to mop up the vote of people who want pragmatic, competent-if-uninspired government that facilitates us making lots of cash.

And where do Fine Gael sit in all this? They're not as socially liberal as the PDs, seen as not as competent economically as FF, and not as community active as Labour or Sinn Fein.

Once upon a time it was enough not to be FF. No longer. They need not just an agenda, but a recognisable political philosophy. Whether it's European social democracy, American neo-Liberalism or Vegetarian Flat Earthers, they need to sit down and define what they stand for that the others don't. If they don't, they'll grow ever more irrelevant and their vote ever smaller.

dahamsta

Moving towards the future of Fine Gael (Victor, feel free to split if you wish), the question has to asked: What now?

I'd like to see FG align themselves with Labour for the next four years, with an eye to building a coalition government in the 30th Dáil. Is this just fairytale thinking?

adam

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

Victor

Originally posted by daveirl
Fine Gael's mjor problem was the fact that this split exists in the party

Personalities aside, I don't think there is any 'split' within the party, more that it is broad based, eh, much like most of the other parties.

mike65

Fine Gael can't be a broad church any longer, and as was already stated they have to be more than not being FF. The need to find a role thats right for them first though, not have one eye on posible coalition partners.

My own belief is that they should look to the right rather than left, which is becoming a very crowded spot now, the socilaist vote will be split at least three ways from now on- Labour, SF and Green add to that many independents of reddish hue.

FG need to go big on fiscal rectitude, anti-coruption, Europe and
dynamic ecomonics.

Mike.

sceptre

Made my comments over at http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?postid=469772#post469772 on the last few points.

Pointelss cutting and pasting it (unless Victor is kind enough to move it in here;))

Lennoxschips

I think the Irish election system sucks. It's setup in the favour of large parties with enough financial resources to run multiple candidates (FF, FG).

mike65

We could always go for FPTP like Britain and have FF in power for ever!

Mike.

Lennoxschips

I was thinking more along the lines of the Dutch system.

Each voter can cast one vote (no prefs), on a party (not a candidate). This is done nationally. Votes won are directly proportionate to the number of seats. The parties then allocate the seats they won to their members.

If you make the system simpler, and less daunting, then more people are encouraged to vote. If you take away preferences, people will also think twice before blindly voting FF. You also get rid of the whole dodgy business of vote management and transfers. The fact that you are voting for a party and not a candidate gets rid of the whole personality-politics shenanegans that FF are so good at.

Mnemoniac

Originally posted by Lennoxschips
I was thinking more along the lines of the Dutch system.

Each voter can cast one vote (no prefs), on a party (not a candidate). This is done nationally. Votes won are directly proportionate to the number of seats. The parties then allocate the seats they won to their members.

If you make the system simpler, and less daunting, then more people are encouraged to vote. If you take away preferences, people will also think twice before blindly voting FF. You also get rid of the whole dodgy business of vote management and transfers. The fact that you are voting for a party and not a candidate gets rid of the whole personality-politics shenanegans that FF are so good at.

Interesting comparison. I guess there aren't too many people who have voted in both the Dutch and the Irish systems. As it happens I have so I'll take that as license to throw my tuppence worth into the ring.

In the Irish system, you can spend the whole afternoon working your way down to the 24th preference, if you really want to fill them all in.

In the Dutch system you fill in one box and think, hmm, so that was that for another 4 years.

BTW, in the Netherlands you *can* vote for a candidate if you wish.

IMHO, in both systems you have the feeling that your vote counts. In Ireland you can (more or less) trace your vote wandering from candidate to candidate until it eventually sticks with someone you didn't think was too bad after the eighth recount or so.

OTOH, the Dutch approach to consensus and participation in (reasonable) coalitions gives you the feeling that you're being represented by the party you chose.

I don't agree with you that making the system simpler encourages voting. In the Netherland, as in many other democracies, it's a huge problem that the electorate is apathetic and uninformed.
Several chicken and egg questions here. Is it the duty of the politicians to bring their message across better or is it the duty of a democracy to ensure that it's electorate is well-informed or is it the duty of the individual to inform himself? Depends on your politics, I guess :-)

In any case, there's a "proof of the pudding" argument from Wednesday's Dutch general election. The electorate has spoken and voted en masse a party without a manifesto, without a leader, largely without political experience and most definitely without political potential. And why? Purely on the Cult of Personality of the charismatic Professor Pim, his legacy to Dutch politics is the second largest party in the country, a party that didn't exist three months ago.

But now Pim's pushing up the daisies and the party he left behind is in disarray with internal squabbles and several (albeit minor) scandals. They have already been described as a herd of reindeer trying to elect a new Santa Claus from their midst.

A large portion of the Dutch electorate was and still is misguided and has plunged the whole nation into a period of uncertainty. There's a case to be made that this would not have happened in the Irish electoral system.

Lennoxschips

Although I've never voted in both systems, I'm Irish and have lived in Holland. Even though turnout in Holland was 83%, there were indeed a lot of clueless people who voted for Fortuyn for the sake of it.

Perhaps the Dutch system is too simple. Too simple in that it allows unkown populist parties like LPF to establish themselves too quickly. The Irish system, on the other hand, plays into the hands of the established parties, such as FF and FG, by making it nearly impossible for new or smaller parties to make a tangiable impact at an election. And by running multiple candidates all over the place, FF can use the transfer system to their advantage.

BuffyBot

Originally posted by Rufus T Firefly

And where do Fine Gael sit in all this? They're not as socially liberal as the PDs, seen as not as competent economically as FF, and not as community active as Labour or Sinn Fein.

there you go, my thoughts exactly. FG don't stand for anything except "we're just like FF, but a bit different"...therefore, this is why they got wiped out.

Saruman

Where FF and FG one party once? They should join/rejoin with each other and make one party! They are basically the same anyway.

sceptre

Most of them were one party once!

FG (when they were Cumann na Gael) split with Sinn Fein in 1922 over the Treaty (realistically SF split with CnaG rather than the other way around).

FF split with SF in 1926 over abstentionism (Cumann na gael had passed a law that year that if you didn't take up your seat you would forfeit it)

PDs split with FF in 1984(85?)

Workers Party split with SF in 1982 - later as we remember went in with Labour (and that was with Official SF - that split had occurred in 1971)

SF have had an amazing amount of splits even in the past thirty-odd years - the Provos splitting with the Officials, the arrival of Republican SF in 83, the ISRP in 74, oh, that list could go on.

So in 1922 we had two parties - SF and Labour. Seventy years later we had plenty.

May be missing a few splits at that.

Victor

Originally posted by Lennoxschips
You also get rid of the whole dodgy business of vote management and transfers. The fact that you are voting for a party and not a candidate gets rid of the whole personality-politics shenanegans that FF are so good at.

But it puts the power of TD selection (as opposed top candidate selection) in the hands of the politicians not the people.

Germany has a combined system, where you vote for your local candidate and a list (only parties with more than 5% get seats from the list). The stated advantage is that party leaders and professional MPs can concentrate on their work and on national politics and not on local / petty issues.