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Beneath the vote for stability and small-c conservatism, darker currents are stirring

Our system of PR is praised for incentivising consensus and civility. But it can also lead to entropy – a gradual decline into uncertainty and disorder

Hugh Linehan
A crisis of democratic engagement: This was the lowest voter turnout in the history of the State. Hugh Linehan
Hugh Linehan's picture
Hugh Linehan
Tue Dec 03 2024 - 06:00

The Dublin rock band Fontaines DC, who sang of “the gall of Fine Gael and the fail of Fianna Fáil”, will not welcome the fact, but it is pretty clear who won this election. The two-party bloc that opponents derisively call FFG took 43 per cent of the popular vote and 49 per cent of the seats.

It is of course true that for most of their respective histories, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael commanded twice that level of popular support between them. But the social and economic transformations and convulsions of the 21st century broke that old duopoly irretrievably. What is remarkable is that, out of the ashes, the two have managed to fashion a new duopoly, a powersharing arrangement that maintains their grip on government.

What began with the confidence and supply agreement of 2016-2020 and blossomed into the full coalition of the last four-and-a-half years is now the dominant paradigm. At each successive election, transfers between the two have risen, helping to deliver a seat bonus which on this occasion accrued largely to Fianna Fáil. Now an FFG coalition, supported by Independents, looks the most probable outcome when government formation is concluded.

Remarkably, if that government serves its full term, Fine Gael will have been in power for almost 19 years, easily breaking the record held by Fianna Fáil administrations from 1932 to 1948 and from 1957 to 1973. Like Theseus’s ship, which remained the same even though every part was replaced, nearly the entirety of Fine Gael’s leadership and backbenches will have changed over that period, with Paschal Donohoe almost the sole remaining spar from the original vessel.

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Is such a long spell in government healthy? It is reductive to think of democracy as a simple Buggins’ turn in which one crowd exits via a revolving door simply so another one can enter. But two decades in continuous power, albeit with different personnel and partners along the way, is a very, very long stretch indeed. And the fact that most of that time will have been spent in co-operation or full coalition with Fianna Fáil, which itself has dominated government for most of the history of the State, adds to the sense of a fixed and immutable order. Where some will see stability, others may perceive stagnation.

[ Irish voters keep doing the same things and expecting different results ]

Whatever you call it, it is clearly the expression of the will of those who voted. Since the result became clear, Sinn Féin representatives have barely tried to pretend any enthusiasm for the left-wing alternative they claim they will be exploring. Even stretching the definition of “left-wing” to breaking point, such an alliance would fall almost 20 seats short of a majority. And that is before taking into consideration the often fractious and distrustful relationship between its various component parts.

In order for democratic politics to thrive, voters need to be presented with a viable alternative to the status quo which they can then choose to accept or reject. That did not happen in this election

It has been a recurring theme in our political history that small parties with coherent agendas can play a disproportionate role in governments that deliver real reform. Labour, the Progressive Democrats and the Greens all successfully followed that template. But it is not necessarily a given.

Labour in the 1980s and in 2011-2016 failed to convince voters that it had made a positive contribution beyond reining in the worst impulses of Fine Gael at times of economic hardship. The PDs lost their ideological focus in the dying days of Bertie Ahern’s second term. The Greens floundered in the wake of the 2008 financial crash during their first spell in government and lost all their seats.

If a small party does end up being perceived as a mere mudguard on the governmental bicycle, it can expect no mercy at the following election. That can also be true if it delivers on many of its promises, as the Greens have just discovered.

[ How the foreign news media covered the Irish general election ]

Given the composition of the next Dáil, it is hard to see how any small party could achieve sufficient leverage to justify entering government. Although Micheál Martin, who now holds the whip hand going into these negotiations, might welcome an additional centre-left component in Cabinet to bolster the advantage he already holds over Fine Gael.

Whatever combination emerges from what will probably be an annoyingly performative and long-winded negotiation process, the next government will be overwhelmingly dominated by FFG. Compared to its predecessor, that government may also nudge slightly to the right, particularly on climate (although its ability to do so will be constrained by binding legal commitments).

In any case, given the commitments made by all parties during the campaign, traditional left-right divides are moot, even though a clear divide will still remain between government and opposition over the correct balance between State intervention and market forces when it comes to housing policy.

Beneath the vote for continuity, stability and small-c conservatism which many international media reported as the outcome of this election, darker currents are stirring. There is a crisis of democratic engagement: this was the lowest voter turnout in the history of the State. There is growing dislocation and alienation among some parts of society, as seen in the vote for Gerard Hutch. Negative sentiment towards immigration may not have found direct electoral expression this time, but polling shows it is rising, as elsewhere in Europe. And, based on demographic projections, there is little prospect of the housing crisis easing.

In order for democratic politics to thrive, voters need to be presented with a viable alternative to the status quo which they can then choose to accept or reject. That did not happen in this election. There was never a prospect of the Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael duopoly being challenged. That is surely the real reason why the campaign never really came to life.

Our system of proportional representation is praised – rightly – for incentivising consensus and civility. But it can also lead to entropy – a gradual decline into uncertainty and disorder. That has happened in the past. Something in our current political order will need to change before the next election if we are to be confident that it will not happen again.