Enda Kenny would be wise to invite the Labour party into government rather than cobble together independents
Far, far worse than John Major's trouncing, the punishment voters have meted out on Fianna Fáil has one thing in common with it. The people have mastered the rules of the electoral game to redouble the force of their rejection. Just as Liberal Democrats and Labour people lent each other support in 1997, in line with the tactical requirements of ousting the Tories under first past the post, Ireland's voters made full use of the multiple preferences allowed under their system to shrink the representation of Micheál Martin's ruling party. Thus its losses exceed even what would have been expected after it mislaid a full two-thirds of its support.
Until this weekend, Fianna Fáil was Europe's most successful electoral force – in power for three years in every four since modern politics got going, and for around 90% of the last quarter century. It reliably attracted around 40% of the poll in every national election; its fall from grace now is sudden and abject. Nowhere in the country was the party of De Valera the most popular choice, and it was left with only one seat of the 47 Dublin Dáil seats; capital punishment indeed. In the scramble to find a collapse to compare with this, analysts have been forced back two decades and across the Atlantic to Canada, where Kim Campbell's Progressive Conservatives experienced a remarkably similar loss of support to that of Fianna Fáil in the 1993 federal election, but lacking the Irish buffer of proportional representation they were reduced to just two seats as compared to Mr Martin's parliamentary rump of around 20.
That example may cheer despondent Fianna Fáil hearts, particularly since the Canadian Tories have since regrouped and come back to power, albeit in a new form. Reading too much into it, however, would not be wise, thanks to the idiosyncrasies of Ireland's party system. There is no coherent Fianna Fáil ideology to regroup around, save for the anachronism of opposing the 1922 treaty. This is a network of parishes and patronage which has, until now, been animated by the reality or near prospect of power. Who can say how it will fare now that this magic ingredient has been taken away.
What Ireland has rejected is, however, much clearer than what Ireland wants. The big winners were Enda Kenny's Fine Gael, which scooped more seats than ever before, although they received only 36% of the vote, rather less than their strongest past showings. Despite a good campaign, the lack of universal enthusiasm for Fine Gael is not hard to understand. Economic questions are the only questions that count in a country where a fifth of national income has just disappeared in a baffling burst of smoke from the blazing banks. On these questions, the centre-right take of Fine Gael is hard to distinguish from that of its ousted adversaries. As the new Taoiseach, Mr Kenny would be wise to invite the resurgent Labour party into his government, as opposed to seeking to cobble together a majority out of a rag-bag of independents. A government with a strong centre-left leg, and with a clear majority of the voters behind it, will be much better placed to renegotiate the crippling terms of the £85bn IMF/EU bailout package, something Mr Kenny yesterday said he would make his priority.
That has to be right, and it is welcome that Mr Kenny seems inclined to erect a big tent. Reducing the burden of international interest may blunt the sharpest edges of the cuts, but neither that nor the promised inquiry into banking will bring the good times back.
Fianna Fáil has been deservedly eaten after the savage turn of the Celtic tiger that it rode for so long, but power has now passed to another party forged in the struggle for national sovereignty, which also has precious few plans for rescuing economic sovereignty today. The people who have said what they do not want have not been offered a clear alternative. It may not be long before they are once again scratching their heads, and asking – who elected the bankers?