Irish General Election (February 8th 2020)

[DL]

If Fine Gael is seen to be a bit more rightwing economically than Fianna fail - why is it that the Labour party has had so many coalition agreements with FG over the years but they never seem to want to cooperate with FF? 

[DL]

Looking at this from a Canadian perspective...there might have been a time in the 60s, 70s, early 80s when it would have been conceivable that the NDP and the PCs would have worked together in the interest of having a non-Liberal government. Back when the PCs were controlled by their more "red Tory" faction and had leaders like Stanfield or Clark - you could have seen some sort of PC/NDP rapprochement.  But in the last 30 years the Conservatives in Canada have become such a rabidly rightwing party that it is inconceivable that there could ever be any common ground between them and the NDP. If the NDP ever struck some sort of Canadian version of the Cameron/Clegg LD-Tory coalition with Canada's conservatives - I suspect it would lead to an electoral armageddon for the NDP in any subsequent election (as happened to the LDs in the UK in 2015).

But it does not sound like either FG or FF in Ireland have been taken over by the extreme right the way the Tories in the UK and Canada have.

[DL]

According to the polls we are getting very close to a point where all the left of centre parties (i.e. SF, Greens, Labour, SD, S) are getting close to 50% of the vote. Could Ireland end up with its first ever left of centre government and put both FF and FG in opposition?

[DL]

Why don't FF and FG simply merge. In this day and age what is the point of having two parties that are ideologically utterly indistinguishable from each other?

[DL]

Why don't FF and FG simply merge. In this day and age what is the point of having two parties that are ideologically utterly indistinguishable from each other?

I was under the impression that Fine Gael were socially liberal and fiscally conservative, whereas Fianna Fail were socially conservative and mixed on the economy?

Or am I totally wrong?

That was my impression back in the 80s and 90s but nowadays I don't think that's true anymore and they really are the tweedledum and tweedledee parties

[DL]

The way the polls are looking it may be that the only viable government is a FF-FG "grand coalition" - and that could present SF with even more of an opportunity as the only real opposition to a government that would likely get very unpopular very quickly

[DL]

Do they bother making a seat distribution estimate from the exit poll or do we just assume that it will be proportional?

[DL]

I assume that in a constituency where SF could have elected a second MP the “leftover” SF votes go to whoever was their second preference.,,who do SF voters tend to preference? Greens? Labour? Independents?

[DL]

Any updated seat projections now that actual vote tallies are coming in?

[DL]

So it seems pretty certain then that some sort of FF led minority government will end up being formed in the end and Varadcar will be gone as PM

[DL]

Can someone explain the difference between Laour and the Social Democrats?

[DL]

I ha e a question about how preferences get distributed under STV in Ireland. I get how lowest candidates get dropped on each count and their votes go to their second preferences etc... but how do surplus votes get distributed. Let’s say a seat requires 10,000 votes to make quota and there is just one SF candidate and that person gets 13,000 votes. How do they decide which 3,000 of the 13,000 first preferences are considered surplus and get distributed to second preferences and which ones don’t?

[DL]

Looks like there will be 19 independents elected - is there any ideological breakdown of where they stand? are some very rightwing and some very leftwing? What's the deal?