12.06.1997

Left moves forward in Irish election

The June 6 general election in Ireland may have produced a change of government, but seems very unlikely to alter the course of the imperialist-backed ‘peace’ process.

The outgoing Fine Gael administration looks certain to be replaced by an alliance led by Bertie Ahern’s Fianna Fail when the Dáil (parliament) meets on June 26. Ahern’s 76 TDs will have the support of four surviving Progressive Democrats, but will need the backing of at least three independents, several of whom are ex-Fianna Fail members.

For the first time since 1922 Sinn Fein will have a member in the Dáil, with Caoimhghin O’Caolin successful in Cavan-Monaghan. In 1957 four abstentionist candidates were elected, as were IRA hunger strikers in 1981, but O’Caolin will be the first to take up his seat. He may also support Ahern.

An encouraging feature of the elections was the success of the Socialist Party (as in Britain the organisation has dropped ‘Militant’ from its name). Joe Higgins was elected in Dublin West with 6,496 first-preference votes (16.21%), just behind leading Fianna Fail candidate Brian Lenahan. Higgins was however the first to be elected in the four-member constituency in the complex proportional representation voting system. A pleasing side effect of the SP’s intervention in Dublin West was that Joan Burton, a Labour junior minister in the outgoing government, was defeated.

The SP gained thousands of first-preference votes in the other four Dublin seats it contested, with Clare Daly winning 2,971 (7.22%) in Dublin North and Mick Murphy 2,026 (4.84%) in Dublin South West. Its overall total was 12,445, an average of six percent.

As a result of local campaigning, particularly in the Dublin Federation against Water Charges, the SP has succeeded in building up substantial working class support. Six thousand Dublin households have paid subscriptions to the federation so far this year and the campaign also backed candidates (with less success) in Cork and Limerick.

An independent socialist, Seamus Healy, who is close to the SP, narrowly failed to gain election in Tipperary South. He gained 5,814 votes on a localist campaign.

The Socialist Worker’s Party’s sister organisation also stood candidates. Although unlike the SP it has not built up any base through local campaigning, the Irish SWP nevertheless picked up a total of 2,028 votes in the four seats it contested. Its sectarian decision to stand against the SP in Dublin South Central did not however outweigh the welcome fact that at last the organisation has decided to adopt an independent working class position during an election. But where does it leave its electoral policy for Britain?

Nine percent of the electorate voted for candidates other than those from the main bourgeois parties and in Ireland, where the Tweedle Dum/Tweedle Dee nature of the two-party system has always been most pronounced. There is clearly great potential for a working class alternative.

It seems unlikely that established groups who originated with left republicanism, such as the Workers Party, will be able to fill the vacuum. The WP vote was particularly squeezed last week, while the now completely ‘respectable’ Democratic Left, which also has its origins in the ‘official communist’ wing of Irish republicanism, maintained its vote with four members elected.

Although Sinn Fein stood only l5 candidates in the 41 multi-member constituencies, it gained 2.9% of the national vote, increasing its support by a third - a showing which enraged British and Irish reactionaries. The Independent editorial ranted: “The voters of Cavan and Monaghan showed their fellow country people in a poor light by electing a Sinn Fein representative, not just because Sinn Fein supports the murder of Irish people, but because it is a proto-fascist party” (June 10).

Such a reaction is reason enough for anti-imperialists to feel pleased at SF’s results. However, in the context of the 26 Counties the organisation does not represent a revolutionary force. Far from wanting to overthrow the state, it views the Irish government (along with US imperialism) as a potential ally in its resistance to the British occupation in the North.

To the degree that SF remains a revolutionary organisation in the Six Counties, communists give it critical support. At the moment there is no genuine working class revolutionary organisation either side of the border. The SP and SWP are centrists who want to ignore the national question and treacherously condemn the IRA’s anti-imperialist actions, while IRA/Sinn Fein’s revolutionism is of a petty bourgeois nature.

In the absence of the revolutionary organisation the Irish people need, the ‘peace’ process looks set to resume. The ‘pro-republican’ Bertie Ahern has said that, although he will have one more meeting with SF, once he becomes taoiseach he will fall in with the Fine Gael/British consensus and refuse official talks unless the IRA calls a ceasefire.

Jim Blackstock