Most extraordinary election in the history of the state!
General Election Blog by Newstalks Political Analyst Shane Coleman
Blog Entry 8
Plus ca change, plus c’est le meme chose. It may have been the most extraordinary election in the history of the state but the government that will emerge from this democratic revolution is hardly original.
Fine Gael and Labour have coalesced on six different times in the past – such a combination being the second most common post-election scenario (after a Fianna Fail single party administration) since independence.
From the moment that Fianna Fail and the Greens first faced the wrath of the public back in October, 2008, when it withdrew automatic medical cards for pensioners, such a coalition seemed inevitable.
The only time it seemed in doubt was in the final week of the election campaign when Fine Gael’s incredible surge seemed as if it could bring them an overall majority. Just how close it was to this seemingly impossible goal is evident from the 76 seats it managed to garner from just 36% of the vote.
If the party had managed to secure the 40% it was on in one poll in the final days of the campaign, then it seems as if it would have hit the 83 mark.
It’s impossible to know what caused the last minute tailing off in support for Fine Gael. Enda Kenny’s painfully inadequate response to being grilled by Micheal Martin on the Fine Gael plan during the final debate may well have been a factor. That, combined with Labour’s good last week of the campaign, may have convinced some voters that a single party government was not desirable. Fine Gael will never have a better opportunity to get across the line on its own.
But that shouldn’t take away from the party’s stunning performance – its best ever in seat terms. Enda Kenny, a man whose political career seemed to be over last June, is going to be first Fine Gael leader to be elected Taoiseach by the people in a general election since Garret FitzGerald back in 1982.
The next four or five years will determine whether he is up to the task ahead but certainly there is no denying his fortitude and political nous and skill to get to where he is today. He has earned the right to be Taoiseach – the hard way.
And having spent so long getting to the top job, he is not going to jeopardise everything by forming an unstable administration dependent on independents and/or outside support from Fianna Fail.
Fine Gael, for tactical reasons, has been quick to talk up the potential options it has in forming a government. But such talk is codswallop. There may be 19 ‘others’ in the new Dail but how many of them would be suitable government bedfellows for Fine Gael?
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