Liadh failed to engage and win hearts, but the blame for SF’s poll disaster lies squarely with her party leader

MARY Lou McDonald has an unexpected problem, one that perhaps deserves more attention than the likely temporary phenomenon of Peter Casey’s personal rise.

Amid all the spin Sinn Féin is offering to excuse and explain the dismal size of the vote attracted by its Presidential candidate Liadh Ní Riada, one of its arguments is true: Sinn Féin will do much better in the next general election than Ní Riada’s 6.4% and fourth-place showing in this poll.

After all, the candidates in the general election will be carrying the Sinn Féin banner proudly and, even if they have low personal recognition in their local constituencies (which is itself unlikely), that will immediately give them a boost. Their local constituency organisations will be out in force, canvassing door to door. Party leader McDonald and other party leading lights will be more present on the airwaves, to deliver the party’s message with more heft than Ní Riada managed.

Failure

But that doesn’t mean Sinn Féin and McDonald have not suffered a setback, that this can be explained away as some form of rogue poll of no real significance.

Sinn Féin had a clear ambition for this Presidential election, one that was explained to me by one senior figure in its parliamentary party: It was never about unseating Michael D Higgins as President. It was supposed to be about Sinn Féin getting its highest ever percentage share of the national vote, providing a base to work off in the next general election.

With Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil out of the picture, Sinn Féin saw 20%-plus as achievable – and how its members would have crowed about the rise of the party had that been achieved.

By that criteria, what happened was a major failure. Any efforts to say otherwise are not honest. Significant money was spent, with nationwide postering (that only Higgins matched) and a big campaign bus that the other candidates couldn’t afford, not even the so-called millionaire Dragons.

To garner under 94,000 votes meant that McDonald’s first electoral test since taking over as party leader last February had gone badly awry, leading to legitimate questions as to her judgment in the choice of candidate, the party’s campaign strategy and the failure to energise the Sinn Féin base to canvass and vote for Ní Riada.

In fairness to McDonald, she didn’t try the easy option of blaming Ní Riada, even if claiming they had a good campaign was risible. That would be unfair to Ní Riada, who was only co-opted onto the ticket on September 16, not giving her enough time to become known to the electorate.

Ní Riada admitted as much on Saturday when she said ‘had we more time perhaps people would have got to know me better’. But the efforts by the media were met on many occasions with a rebuff, if her media handlers would even deign to respond to requests for interviews.

Her failure to take questions at a press conference on the day of her nomination was the first misstep, but to only make herself available for interview to some outlets at the 11th hour was baffling: for example, the first time I was allowed to meet the candidate was the Wednesday before polling day, which was far too late for her to make an impression on my radio programme’s listeners.

Admirable

Ní Riada seemed reluctant to mix the personal with the political but she had an interesting human story that could have been teased out. The loss of her famous father, the musician Seán Ó Riada, when she was only four was one aspect, the other was the death of her first husband from cancer at the age of just 29.

A reluctance to use these as political cards was admirable but the reality of the Presidential election is that it is a personality contest of sorts, like that or not. There is no point in taking part if you’re not prepared to engage.

Part of her problem, however, was that she and Sinn Féin tried to be too clever by half on occasions, and people can see through that. She didn’t help herself when the story of her initial opposition to the HPV vaccine was disclosed – and the Facebook posts and a Cork local radio interview were pretty clear-cut compared to her subsequent explanations that she was now pro-vaccine.

She tried too hard to play both sides: when she said she would wear a poppy on Remembrance Day if elected President, to the surprise of many, she tried to mollify Sinn Féin voters by saying she would not wear one if not elected. She may have had no baggage from the terrorism of the IRA era but when I asked her about attending ceremonies that celebrated killers she adopted the same flipflop approach. If President, she said she would not do so unless they were official State functions but if not President well, yes, she would go as a party member.

Difficult

She spoke about being a President for all, but yet continued to push the united Ireland message which, while legitimate, is not necessarily a unifying topic with which all people agree.

She made a complete hash of dealing with questions about how much of her salary she took home and how much she donated to the party, and has left all future Sinn Féin candidates in a very difficult position on that one in the future.

Making a Presidential visit to Palestine a priority appealed to few and it had to be pointed out to her repeatedly that she couldn’t address the Houses of Oireachtas without getting the text of her speech approved by the Government.

She struggled, too, when asked about Sinn Féin’s cover-up of the sexual abuse of women and children by IRA volunteers. The failure to display her Sinn Féin credentials on posters – when she was clearly a committed party woman in the interviews she did give and in the debates in which she partook – also raised doubts as to the sincerity of the campaign.

Ní Riada, aiming not just to get the party vote out and other women and the middle classes too, failed even to secure her own party’s vote, some of which, analysts said, went to Casey instead.

And this may be very significant. Sinn Féin is a populist party – no matter how much it abhors and rejects that description – that has risen over the last decade in playing to people’s victimhood. But that approach may no longer have the same resonance in the post-austerity environment. Just as support for others on the left seems to be waning, new voices are tapping into general dissatisfaction that exists and is now described as anti-establishment.

There is a move against what is called political correctness – and ironically given that Sinn Féin was the twin of the IRA that killed its political opponents (and many of its supporters too), Sinn Féin postures with more PC positions than most.

Its target voters may look elsewhere. This means Sinn Féin may need to find a different way to break its support out above the mid-teens. If it can’t, it may be destined to become the 21st-century replacement for the Labour Party in Irish politics, the half-party destined to be junior partner in coalitions but never the leader.

McDonald’s first foray to broaden the party’s appeal has failed miserably. Where she tries to bring the party next will be fascinating to watch.