Irish General Election (February 8th 2020)

[LabourJersey]

I assume Fianna Fáil will stand to gain or win outright given Leo's handling the memorializing controversy pretty badly. I still genuinely don't understand what FF stands for ideologically though.

[LabourJersey]

What is the difference between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael? They’re both listed as pro-European conservative parties, which is obviously an over-simplification.

Finna fail is eastern Ukraine politically and Fine Gael in western Ukraine politically.

This just makes things less clear

[LabourJersey]

Two questions:

1. Any particular reason Labour are stubbornly failing to bounce back, or is it just their general unlikeability?
2. What independents are we expecting to see returned this time? Presumably they're going to hold the balance of power, so the variety elected will be quite important.

1. Basically memories are too fresh and their leadership team is elderly and jaded (the current party leader was the public expenditure minister enforcing austerity between 2011 and 2016).
2. I think most of the rural gene-pool independents will hold on (Healy-Raes, Lowry, etc.) and former MEP Marian Harkin is likely to join them in Sligo-Leitrim and John Leahy (ex-Renua) is a possibility in Offaly along with the elaborately-spectacled ex-FFer Sharon Keogan in Meath East.



A lot of the more left-wing (or at least gene-pool left) independents are standing down and are unlikely to be replaced and others like Thomas Pringle in Donegal or Joan Collins (no, not that one) in Dublin look to be in trouble.

Having the main administrator of austerity running a labor party has to be the worst political decision I've seen in a long while

[LabourJersey]

Votes for Taoiseach have been happening this evening.

The figures RTE has are
Varadkar: yes 36, no 107, abstentions 16
Martin: yes 41, no 97, abstentions 19
McDonald: yes 45, no 84, abstentions 29
Ryan: yes 12, no 115, abstentions 28

Does this mean that the onus is on McDonald to try to form a coalition with her as Taoiseach, or does this not really effect the ongoing attempt to form a gov't?