It’s been just eleven days since Fianna Fáil’s presidential hopeful Jim Gavin scurried from the race after revelations he had scandalously pocketed a tenant’s rent overpayment 15 years ago. Since, the Irish ruling class has unleashed a relentless smear campaign against Catherine Connolly – a campaign driven by their palpable fear of her becoming president.
Gavin’s rout has cracked open a major fissure in the establishment’s flank, transforming the election into a two-horse race between Connolly and Fine Gael’s Heather Humphreys. Many workers and youth are now seeing this as an opportunity to deliver a hefty blow to the establishment. And indeed, a Connolly victory would be a deep humiliation for Ireland’s ruling class at home, and, in today’s fraught international climate, an embarrassment abroad.
This is the context for the renewed and heightened barrage of attacks against Connolly by the media.
“Smear the bejaysus out of her”
Everything and the kitchen sink is being thrown at Connolly in a desperate bid to drag her down. And the more frantic the establishment becomes, the more hysterical and absurd their attacks grow.
It’s difficult not to find irony in their utter hypocrisy. Attacks range from efforts to taint her over her past work as a barrister for having worked for banks (imagine that, coming from the people that bailed them out wholesale after 2008!), to claims that she ‘misrepresented’ her use of public funds in travelling to Syria. And again, if there’s one thing Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael know plenty about, it’s misrepresenting public funds…
Even more scandalous are the bare-faced lies spewed by Humphreys and former Justice Minister Alan Shatter that Connolly somehow broke Oireachtas rules by bringing an Éirígí member with previous convictions into Leinster House without Garda vetting – a completely made up rule.
According to the media, what is even worse is that this appointee had the audacity to not support the Good Friday Agreement! Lest we forget Humphreys’ own family and husband are linked to the Orange Order – an organisation mortally opposed to the GFA – but you wouldn’t know of it from the bosses’ media.
They amplify every so-called ‘slip’, magnify any murmur of dissent from erstwhile Green or Labour current – or former – backers, and insinuate that criticism of the smear is itself ‘victim talk.’
The establishment devious strategy was put bluntly by former Fine Gael TD and media clown Ivan Yates on Newstalk:
“I would smear the bejaysus out of her… you’ve got to create a fear… nothing works like negative campaigning. You’re going to be shocked about this now… I would go bullheaded: ‘Do you want a Provo in the park? Is she a Russian asset?’”
There it is, straight from the horse’s mouth. These attacks are nothing more than cynical attempts by the ruling class to undermine Connolly’s campaign. The hope is that by hurling enough mud, some of it will stick.
Why the slanders?
Catherine Connolly is clearly an honest and well-intentioned individual. Her political outlook is that of pushing for reforms under capitalism.
She champions housing as a human right, stands in solidarity with Palestine and speaks about Irish neutrality. Truth be told, ideologically she is not that different from Michael D. Higgins. On various occasions, she has confirmed her intention is to not rock the boat and that she would do everything that is expected of a President.
All in all, she is quite of a mild left reformist – by no means a revolutionary, a Marxist, or a communist. And if she were to win, she would occupy a primarily ceremonial position.
Why then is the ruling class attacking her so vociferously?
Connolly’s campaign is connecting to many of the burgeoning international issues that are radicalising workers and youth – particularly with her stance on Palestine, militarism and neutrality. The point is that in the current international environment, an Irish president even just mildly speaking on these issues would be a source of endless embarrassments and problems for the Irish ruling class. Their attacks are not the product of confidence, but of chronic weakness – the flailing of a political establishment that knows its grip on power is slipping.
In truth, Ireland – despite so-called neutrality – has always been firmly in the camp of the Western imperialists. But now, with the crisis of world capitalism increasing frictions between the various imperialist blocks, with the EU and the US clashing over trade, tariffs and military spending, and with Trump eager to squeeze his ‘allies’ more and more deeply to try and stave off the crisis at home – Ireland is coming under fire from all sides.
The Irish ruling class is shaking in their boots at the prospect of their imperialist masters pulling the plug on the corporate tax cheques coming from multinationals. And they are coming under increased pressure to step into line, and be done with all the ambiguity and double speaking on Palestine, neutrality etc. Just look at the pressure coming in from across the Atlantic on even the extremely watered down version of the Occupied Territories Bill the government is bringing forward.
Indeed, Trump is already fighting to withdraw multinationals back to the US, which would obliterate Irish capitalism. As frankly put in an Irish Times podcast at the beginning of the year, the ruling class’ best option is to make themselves as small as possible in the (impossible) hope nobody notices them.
The last thing they need is for the Irish president to upset Trump. One ill-timed statement by a president Connolly could trigger the man in the White House into a decisive fury, to the ultimate detriment of the Irish ruling class. Nor are things much better with their European counterparts, who are pressing Dublin to ramp up military spending and fall in line with their imperialist agenda. The last thing the ruling class wants is a president who dares to criticise German rearmament or question the EU’s march toward militarisation.
Build the RCI!
The ruling class put all their eggs in the Presidential basket in trying and bringing it under their direct control. And yet, despite their best efforts, the election has now become a 1 VS 1 battle between the establishment and a candidate from outside the main parties – and their prospects are bleak.
Given the seething rage that exists within Irish workers and youth, this opportunity to punch the establishment by defeating Humphreys and by extension the Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael coalition could act as a red rag to a bull. In truth, many will not even turn up to vote, disillusioned by the whole political system. One way or the other, the ruling class stands to be exposed in all their weakness.
There is no doubt that a Connolly victory would leave egg on the face of the ruling class. But we must go further and take the fight against the government to the streets, university campuses, workplaces, trade unions and organise on the basis of communism.
To sink Marxism into every facet of Irish society, to argue for the need to overthrow capitalism to defeat the ruling class once and for all. That is precisely what the RCI is fighting for. To build a revolutionary organisation armed with Marxist theory to fight for the final victory of the socialist revolution in Ireland and across the world. Join us in the struggle!
