Mary Lou hints at female Sinn Féin candidate for Áras
Party leader says Higgins shouldn’t ‘just roll in’
SINN Féin has hinted that it could run a female candidate in a presidential election in October.
Party leader Mary Lou McDonald said yesterday that no definitive decision has been taken on running a candidate, but added she didn’t think it appropriate that President Michael D Higgins ‘rolls into another term automatically’.
She said she didn’t mean any disrespect to the President, who was ‘a fine individual personally and professionally’, but that she believed there should be an election. ‘I don’t think it’s appropriate that he rolls into another term automatically,’ she said.
She said there should instead be ‘a broad-based conversation for people to engage in’ about Ireland’s future and values, which in her view would not be offered by a general election. Views: Mary Lou McDonald
‘People who occupy the highest office in the land ought to have an electoral mandate,’ said Ms McDonald. Pointedly, she added: ‘The issue of women looms large in society in a way that is welcome and healthy.’
Ms McDonald also referred to the importance of the LGBT community, Travellers and other minority issues.
The Irish Daily Mail previously revealed Sinn Féin was last year looking to Dublin MEP Lynn Boylan as a possibility for the presidential race – and the party has another prominent possibility in the shape of Liadh Ní Riada MEP.
Sinn Féin’s leadership will meet in Dublin on July 14 to formally decide whether to run a candidate.
The decision is now expected to be a formality in light of yesterday’s public pronouncements by Ms McDonald. Some believe the publicity generated by a Sinn Féin candidate would stand the party in good stead for a general election early next year. Additionally, the party could expect to make serious inroads given Fianna Fáil’s decision last week not to field a presidential candidate.
President Higgins has said he’ll outline his intentions at some stage this month, with reports that the announcement will come next week. He originally said he would stay for only one term in office.
Yesterday, former Labour leader Pat Rabbitte told the Mail he would advise the President not to run again. ‘As a friend I would counsel him to take his retirement, but politically I would understand if he wishes to go on,’ he said .
A number of ministers have given President Higgins their backing for a second term – as has Taoiseach Leo Varadkar.
Independent Alliance leader Shane Ross also wants the President to stay in place, but his colleague Finian McGrath, super-junior minister for disability, has called for Independent candidates to come forward. Two are already in the field – Senator Gerard Craughwell and artist Kevin Sharkey – but they will face an uphill battle to get on the ballot paper through the support of either four local authorities or 20 Oireachtas members.
‘Issue of women looms large’