Result proves most of us want serious capable leaders

THE outcome of the race for the Presidency is a prism for political parties… it gives them a glimpse into the outer galaxy of the next general election.

It was a bad election for Sinn Féin, for Fine Gael, and for the left-wing smaller fry as they parse the result.

It was arguably a good election for Fianna Fáil and the Labour Party, although the former didn’t run a candidate.

Labour could at least bask in the reflected glory of nominating Michael D Higgins in 2011.

Sinn Féin are the most obvious losers, despite the party’s apparent buoyancy in opinion polls.

Liadh Ní Riada received less than half Sinn Féin’s normal level of support.

She may have made mistakes, but the sheer poverty of the overall performance almost beggars belief – her image looked down from lampposts across the country, yet she was beaten by two Independents who erected precisely no posters at all.

It was Mary Lou McDonald’s first electoral test as leader. She was supposed to bring bright, new female-led leadership for the party after Gerry Adams had his ossified hand on the tiller for so long. Instead she has taken the party a step backwards.

IN RETROSPECT, the idea of a President regularly providing an oppositional force to the policies of government, as promised by Ms Ní Riada, was not what the country wanted.

The promise to wear a poppy as President was never going to win her any new support. Instead it alienated her own.

Irish unification was Ms Ní Riada’s attempt at a conversation, but it was putting the cart before the horse. ‘We need to talk about Brexit’ would have been a far more direct message.

Finally the Gaeilgeoir thing ought to have been a given, and didn’t need to be emphasised.

Senator Rose Conway-Walsh, the party’s spokeswoman on rural Ireland, might have been a better candidate, and also speaks Irish. But somehow Mary Lou, in search of a female flag-bearer, just didn’t see it. So how could Fine Gael have suffered if the party didn’t even contest?

The answer here is subtle… the exit poll deep-dive data suggests Fine Gael supporters turned out in greater numbers than any other party bases.

That’s shown by the 35% support for Fine Gael expressed afterwards, somewhat above the trend in recent opinion polls, where they have hovered just above 30%, with little change.

Yes, the mass of them voted for Michael D, as instructed.

But at least some rebelled and plumped for Peter Casey. Here it must be noted that Casey not only outflanked all-comers by playing the Traveller card, but also homed in on the very Fine Gael-esque middle class ‘people who pay for everything.’

Attacking Ireland’s welfare state, Casey tapped into unhappiness over the recent budget among many who are in employment. Leo promised to especially look after the early risers and then he did no such thing. Child benefit was meanwhile left to shrink in real terms for the third year in a row. A major segment of Casey’s vote must be a protest at the Taoiseach.

It would explain the Taoiseach’s testy remark about Peter Casey to our sister paper, the Irish Mail on Sunday, when he warned Political Editor John Lee: ‘Don’t make a winner out of a loser.’

No-one, of course, protested against Fianna Fáil, who didn’t have a candidate. Officially endorsing Michael D, the party kept its powder dry and saw some rivals take satisfying knocks. An obvious deduction, however, is that the country is crying out for real and passionate leadership and the party will have to seriously develop its platform next time out in order not to be seen as Fianna Gael Lite.

LABOUR exulted in Higgins’ success, as if it marks a renaissance for his old party of the red rose of socialism. Of course, it does no such thing, and Ireland has undoubtedly edged closer to the right – a warning to the many Left splinter parties, if not to history.

Populism comes and goes, but the people themselves are ever in the ascendancy. Their decision was correct, also very simply because it was their decision.

The outcome underlined again that the broad mass of the citizenry is impervious to weathervane winds. They want what they have always wanted: substance and principles.

Those immutables must be on the menu for every political party heading into the next general election, whenever it comes.