Left-wing independent Catherine Connolly was elected the tenth president of Ireland with a thumping majority of 63 percent of the valid votes cast – the highest share of first preferences a presidential candidate has ever received. The votes were at least as much a means of giving the government a kicking as they were votes for her as an individual candidate
The ‘smear the bejaysus’ campaign the ruling class launched against Connolly backfired spectacularly. The establishment’s best efforts – like insinuating she supported Assad or that she’s linked to ‘dissident Republicans’ – only served to reinforce her anti-establishment credentials and propelled her even higher in the polls.
This election is one more humiliation in a long string of defeats for the embattled political establishment. Heather Humphreys – their de facto candidate – limped back to her lodge with a miserable 29 percent.
However these numbers disguise the true scale of the disaster for the ruling class. A record-breaking 13 percent of voters spoiled their ballots. And that’s not counting the 55 percent who simply chose to stay home.
In other words, the establishment’s candidate only received 11 percent of the eligible vote! In all, almost two thirds picked ‘none of the above’, and those that voted overwhelmingly chose a candidate whose main appeal was being against the government coalition. As The Irish Times sarcastically summed up:
“If the aim was to dramatise the yawning gap between the governors and the governed, the result is a brilliant success. The centre-right parties both managed to look delusional.”
What an unmitigated disaster for the Irish establishment. What a devastating indictment of Ireland’s so-called democracy.
Living on borrowed time
In 2024, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael scraped together a coalition with just 24 percent of the total electorate’s votes. Even adding in all Jim Gavin’s votes, they mustered only a pitiful 15 percent. After a century of uncontested supremacy, both parties are suffering an inglorious collapse.
Their absolute confidence entering the race is almost comical compared with their catastrophic performances, which show just how out of touch they really are. Micheál Martin eyed Jim Gavin as “the person best placed to represent the Irish people as president.” Less than a month after, he utterly humiliated himself and Fianna Fáil by withdrawing from the race early.
Humphreys was little better. Simon Harris said of her, “In an increasingly divisive world, I believe Heather can break down barriers and bring people together”. Despite her alleged appeal, they nonetheless locked her away from the public for the full duration of the campaign in fear of a repeat of Harris’s Kanturk disaster.
Over the last few days, the capitalist press has been inundated by discussions about the mismanagement of their campaigns or their unfortunate candidate selection. But make no mistake, this was not a ‘strategic’ failure of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. All of them are tainted by the spiralling crisis destroying the lives of hundreds of thousands of working families. The point is: they have nothing to offer.
On the contrary, after a terrible year in government they have an awful record; an austerity budget, anti-tenant reforms, record homelessness, threats to neutrality, a brewing economic disaster, and an ever worsening crisis of infrastructure with no plans to solve it.
This is the Ireland that any establishment president would have represented. No wonder Irish workers and youth resoundingly rejected them.
A point of reference
One of the key features of this election was the high level of spoiled votes. To be sure, all in all, this was about six percent of those able to vote – but still, a staggering twelve-fold increase since the last presidential election.
The liberal establishment has recoiled in horror at the vitriol appearing on these ballots. There has been no shortage of tears shed over this ‘orchestrated campaign to undermine our democracy’.
The spoil your vote campaign was initially sparked by a small group of far-right, anti-immigrant activists. But that in itself does not explain how in a short space of time such a successful campaign was ‘orchestrated’. After all, if it were a simple affair to get over 200,000 votes, then Jim Gavin would have gotten his deposit back.
As we wrote before the election, “an ever-growing layer of the population feel themselves disenfranchised and simply turn away from elections altogether. Rather than being disinterested however, they are often more angry and feel left behind but have no means of expressing it electorally.”
Many felt the whole election was undemocratic and that the candidates were handpicked by the establishment. And truth be told, they are not far off.
Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael locked the councils to make sure only their candidates would get through. And even Connolly, in order to make it to the ballot, had to receive the support of former junior coalition partners and austerity defenders Labour and Greens, as well as Sinn Féin whose identity crisis of recent years stems from their attempts to join the political establishment.
Certainly a large part of the vote for Connolly had a clear anti-establishment character. The establishment themselves helped to give her that veneer! But the content of her campaign was in itself very weak. She insisted that she is ‘pro-business’ and not against the establishment. Indeed, she is a professional politician and former member of the Labour Party. As such, she was incapable of capturing the fierce anger in the very depths of society, which instead found a channel in the call to spoil your vote.
Some on the left will say this is a good thing, after all, the spoil-your-vote crowd are all racist anti-immigrant hate mongers, we are told. But that is to fundamentally misunderstand why more than 200,000 turned out to cast a spoiled vote.
In his video calling for a spoiled vote, far-right agitator Malachy Steenson complains about the undemocratic nature of the presidential election, accuses all candidates of being establishment politicians – and Fine Gaelers at that – and then criticises government policy on housing, healthcare and education. Undoubtedly, that will have struck a chord with many workers.
The Business Post explained quite well the true nature of the spoiled vote:
“It was the ultimate protest vote. A two fingers to the establishment, facilitated by what was basically a faceless candidate, onto which everyone could project their own unique anger.”
Indeed, in working-class areas like Dublin North-West and Dublin Mid-West as much as 20 percent of ballots cast were spoiled. That is not to say that for a layer this did not come with anti-immigration confusions. But at the bottom, this represents a rejection of the establishment and their policies, and a general disillusionment with the institutions of Irish capitalism.
Also worth noting that in both areas, Connolly received over 70 percent of the valid votes. With turnout barely scraping above 40 percent, in both constituencies less than one in ten voters turned out for the establishment candidates.
So is this election result a move to the right or left? The question misses the point.
What the election represents is a thundering rejection of the establishment. Lacking a genuine revolutionary alternative – one that alone can provide a solution to the problems facing the Irish working class – some of that anger went through the spoiled vote campaign, some went to Connolly, and the majority just stayed at home.
What next?
As president, Connolly has made clear she will do what is expected of her, not breaking the constitutional limits of her role.
But even just mild anti-war, anti-imperialist and anti-austerity rhetoric from the Áras will be a thorn in the coalition’s side as they try to appease western imperialism, which in the context of an increasingly tumultuous world, demands nothing but total submission from Ireland. This will only pour further fuel into the flames of anger against the imperialists and their lackeys in Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.
Already in a debate in the House of Lords Jock Stirrup, a former member of the RAF and ‘Knight Companion of the Order of the Garter’, lamented that Ireland’s relationship with NATO “is coming increasingly under threat with recent political shifts in Irish leadership”.
While we doubt many workers and youth in Ireland will lose sleep over the Right Honourable Lord’s concerns, that’s precisely what rattles the ruling class. Clearly, as a president, Connolly has no power to alter the course of the coalition. But they are coming under increased pressure to step into line with the diktats of imperialism – and just got a battering on an election to a large extent focused on the question.
So what next for the struggle against imperialism and the Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael coalition?
There is now a huge mandate to kick the government out. However, to tell the truth, what this election also exposed is that there is still no viable alternative, which is precisely what allowed them to stay in power in 2024.
Sinn Féin have been celebrating this election as a great success for them. But they might be popping the champagne too soon. After all, they did not win. Only they realised that were they to stand a candidate they would surely lose. They reasonably worried that they could even end up like the establishment parties with the working class using this election as a stick to beat them with. Instead they decided to play it safe and row in behind Connolly.
Neither will the ‘United Opposition’ have better fortunes. In fact, despite Connolly’s victory, the ‘United Opposition’ will struggle to provide a cohesive alternative.
A presidential election where you have to provide no programme is one thing. But a grouping so broad as to include the Green Party and Labour is one which cannot provide a genuine alternative for workers and youth when it comes to an actual programme. That is, if they won’t jump the boat well before that to hang on once again to the coat tails of the ‘serious’ parties.
As things stand, the next general election is four long years away. Under the rule of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, this will be four years of austerity, economic crisis and bitter struggles of the working class.
But in reality a small kick from the streets or workplaces channelling all the anger that exists would suffice to bring down their whole rotten edifice. Only this mood is struggling to find expression in the existing political parties and trade unions.
Above all, what is needed is a coherent revolutionary alternative which can finally strike the decisive blow against the Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael duopoly and drive capitalism from our shores.
