February 7, 20205 yr Didn't know there was a far right party in Ireland, I assume they support an Irexit too Or might that be Eirexit? :P
February 7, 20205 yr Author They had a candidate in Kerry who was born in California and his election card said he wanted to reduce immigration to Ireland 😂. Oh the irony!! Probably reading between the lines he meant immigration from certain countries/races.
February 7, 20205 yr Author The last opinion poll this week had SINN Fein 25% Fianna Fáil 24% Fine Gael 21% Green Party 8% PBP 3% Social Democrats 3% Labour PArty 6%
February 8, 20205 yr That's what I'd assumed. We won't know much until tomorrow afternoon / evening then. STV is a great system but it takes an age to count!
February 8, 20205 yr Exit poll has: Fine Gael - 22.4% Sinn Fein - 22.3% Fianna Fail - 22.2%. Ruddy heck.
February 8, 20205 yr Well, those numbers seem to indicate there'll be another election within the year!
February 8, 20205 yr Author That's what I'd assumed. We won't know much until tomorrow afternoon / evening then. STV is a great system but it takes an age to count! Yeh could be Wednesday!
February 8, 20205 yr Well, those numbers seem to indicate there'll be another election within the year! Despite insisting otherwise, FG and FF could potentially team up and lock out SF/other parties if they're worried about doing even worse in a subsequent election. Exit polls in an STV system tell us less than exit polls in a FPTP system, but I imagine they will end up with enough seats between them to do something if they're really that desperate. (Irish ppl reading this: do let me know if this is a bad take)
February 8, 20205 yr I actually HOWLED when I saw FG won on first preferences. Obviously margin of error and all and transfers are just as important but like how gas is it that even after all of the failures by this Government FF still can't capitalise off the back of it. Byeeee. I voted: 1 - Greens 2 - Soc Dems 3 - PBP (some of their candidates are awful but my candidate has a long history of civil rights advocacy so she's a hun) 4 - I4C 5 - Labour (don't judge me but they did well in the debates) V left wing (it's a VERY left-wing Dublin district) but I couldn't put a preference on the rest (all right wing + SF). Depending on your constituency sometimes ALL of your preferences are counted (like, if you number the entire sheet) so careful voting is key. I think my district is OK but I wasn't taking any chances. :P But there were civilians killed during the original 1916-23 conflict as well as there is in all conflicts unfortunately. I would also argue there was a terror campaign by all sides during various moments of the conflict not just the IRA, not that that makes it ok. I don't fully know how they form party policy but most democratic parties in the western world decide these things in similar ways it's just 'seen' to be democratic but actually isn't. I know people will still remember legacy events such as the Omagh bomb(albeit SF had nothin to do with that) but will it have an impact given the fact that during the last election Gerry Adams was leader and the media kept the story about Jean McConville high on the agenda. I mean look this week when SF are now 25% and topping the poll and all of a sudden the Paul Quinn story comes around, no coincidence. Exactly the same as JC and Antisemetism in Britain. It's the establishment rounding on a party they don't want in government. At any rate how many transfers will they get anyway? 100% agree with you but I think any civilian (non-military) casualty in the original fight for independence would not have been premeditated/intentional. The Troubles was an entirely different case where civilians were targeted heavily by both sides. Don't get me wrong, I despise the Unionist side as much as the Republican side, but as SF are the ones running here that's why I'm so against them. If the DUP or any Unionist party even thought about running for election down here I'd chain myself to the Dáil. :P I definitely think the media tries to bring down SF, but that's only because the majority of the electorate remember the history. To be honest people will only give SF a chance if they weed out the old guard and confront their history head on. It's slightly similar to Die Linke (their founding/merger parties) in Germany as in it technically wasn't directly involved in such situations but it kind of was but no-one is willing to admit it.
February 9, 20205 yr Author There were many intentional civilian casualties in the war of independence just think of Bloody Sunday and Croke Park for one major event?!? Also conflicts have changed. My main point of annoyance is the snobby southern nationalist view that the modern IRA are bad whereas the original IRA from 1919-23 were good.
February 9, 20205 yr Author Looks like SF gonna be the biggest vote %, with 35 or so seats and the main opposition. Mary Lou could have been Taoiseach if SF had put forward a full set of candidates.
February 9, 20205 yr @1226530957907447808 Negotiation time, my favourite! We don't know any official results, do we? Unused to this practice of not staying up all night that the Irish have going on.
February 9, 20205 yr Only one result is confirmed, and that's the speaker, who is from Fianna Fail (the speaker is automatically re-elected, unlike in the UK, where he has has to run for election again). Early indications are that Sinn Fein are going to top the 1st preference poll, although are unlikely to win the most seats, due to them standing only half the candidates that FF/FG did. Unless some interesting backroom deals happen, there's probably going to be another election by the summer time.
February 9, 20205 yr I've seen some very rough/early estimates that have FF/FG on 81 or 82 seats combined so they'll both probably manage to cling onto power in some form.
February 9, 20205 yr If only we had a system as democratic as Ireland's :( Fun fact - the Irish democratic system of PR was forced upon it by the UK, solely to stop a government that is run solely by one party - namely Sinn Fein.
February 9, 20205 yr Fun fact - the Irish democratic system of PR was forced upon it by the UK, solely to stop a government that is run solely by one party - namely Sinn Fein. We have a habit of doing things like that. As another example, we wrote Germany's constitution leaving the country far less centralised than the UK.
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