Irish General Election (February 8th 2020)

[Oryxslayer]

Well, if we are making up theories now than I suspect Sinns good poll numbers presently may have something to do with Brexit happening last week and it's effect on the Irish identity. It's the kind of thing that would drop off after the story leaves the news... except the election is in a few days.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1226266407882698757

Three way tie!

[Oryxslayer]

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

STV doesn't make things truly proportional, it just increases the efficiency of one's vote. FF and FF will do better than the 22% in seats, since they were the big two going in, and they ran the most candidates.

[Oryxslayer]

A Sinn Fein government will be a piece of work for UK/Ireland relations.

(Un)fortunatly, Sinn didn't run enough candidates and doesn't have enough allies in the Dail for a govt. Last seat projection still has FF+FG >50% of the chamber, and they are still ahead of SF in seats individually. Now, FF may decide to invite SF to be the minority partner, but that would be FF's decision  and involve compromise on SF's part.

[Oryxslayer]

Why did SF run less than optimal number of candidates?  Is it becuause they did not expect to do this well ?

Yes; they did poorly in the 2019 local elections and locals held right before a general are often seen as predictive. SF's surge took everyone by surprise, including SF itself.

They also benefited from circumstances outside their control; Brexit was only a week ago after all.

[Oryxslayer]

So it sounds like right now Ireland is about to get their own little taste of Israeli politics. FG is flipping off everyone and saying "you sort it out," SF discovered that the math forces two of the big three to work together as their small party discussions collapsed, and FF insiders have serious problems with SF. So you get a Mexican Standoff that will produce new elections, a la Israel or Spain. The only difference of course is that all parties can adjust the number of candidates they run to tilt the math potentially in their favor.

[Oryxslayer]

It kinda seems like there's some buyer's remorse.

What is this a reference to?

Probably related to the fact that since the election, one of the big topics of analysis and discussion is if Sinn Fein is ready for primetime. Their delegation has made a made a number of outlandish remarks over the past week, which is rather understandable since their 'throwaway' candidates got elected. Then there is the problem that beyond a few at the top, Sinn Fein seems to want to use their position for nationalist policy, not the housing and healthcare issues that brought them here.

[Oryxslayer]

It kinda seems like there's some buyer's remorse.

What is this a reference to?

Probably related to the fact that since the election, one of the big topics of analysis and discussion is if Sinn Fein is ready for primetime. Their delegation has made a made a number of outlandish remarks over the past week, which is rather understandable since their 'throwaway' candidates got elected. Then there is the problem that beyond a few at the top, Sinn Fein seems to want to use their position for nationalist policy, not the housing and healthcare issues that brought them here.

But the issue based polling on this election shows that nationalism was the main area in which their voters stood out from the general Irish public, not housing and healthcare. There are polls that have been posted both here and AAD showing SF voters views on standard fare social and economic policy are all over the place, and in many cases indistinguishable from FF and FG voters' views. The one topic that SF supports really stand out is exactly issues of Irish nationalism.

That is their issue. As has been discussed many times here, irish parties don't differ that much. But the reason why they surged (especially in urban areas) was because SF promised silver bullets on those issues, campaigning off of FG and FFs failings to deal with or prevent the aftereffects of the crash and  austerity in Irish society.

[Oryxslayer]

What happened to "SF should get the first try at government", did they actually try to cobble some kind of coalition? Is Martin desperate enough to try a FF/SF coalition?

On your first question, they did. It didn't last long - too many people said they or their parties were opposed to working with SF. Others on the minor side of things said they wouldn't expect such a govt to work.

[Oryxslayer]

How could Sein Fein have a government?

They can't, at least not with the numbers returned months ago. There was talk of an everyone-but-FF+FG right at the start but that predictably fell apart. The closest they could have gotten was FF+SF but that was opposed by FF. So, the only way SF could get a govt is through new elections which might be why FG are not eager for an election, to answer Parrotguy's question.