FG and FF can not ignore Sinn Féin’ s relevancy
IT Is only two weeks since Taoiseach Leo Varadkar put an end to mounting speculation and set the date for next month’s General Election, but you would be forgiven for feeling we are about two months into the campaign.
The end of the affair between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil was a long, fractious breakup, and the bitterness has certainly spilled over into the campaign, with both Varadkar and Micheál Martin trading blows and swipes at every opportunity.
The current state of the traditional largest parties in the country has left the electorate in a state of confusion. What exactly are we voting for here?
Take the incumbent party, Fine Gael, first. They are guaranteed to take a hit of some sort at the polls – no political pundit worth his or her salt is predicting any kind of seat gain for Leo’s party. Yet Fine Gael are maintaining they are the party to keep this so-call recovery going. But with which parties’ help?
Varadkar has already floated the idea of a ‘grand coalition’ with its main rival, something that Fianna Fáil has flatly dismissed. And given how the confidence and supply arrangement played out, it is difficult to see how Fianna Fáil would enter such an agreement again, regardless of which party holds the advantage on seats.
Which brings us to the elephant in the polling booth: Sinn Féin. Both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil continue to declare their unwillingness to enter government with Mary Lou McDonald’s party, although as well all know, things can change post election. Would Varadkar or Martin continue to be so forthright in their views of
Sinn Féin if a partnership with the party meant five years of government? The lure of power can be extremely difficult for politicians to resist.
Interestingly, Bertie Ahern has already flagged this, saying a Fianna Fáil-Sinn Féin coalition will be a talking point post election. Leo Varadkar responded yesterday morning on his twitter account, saying: ‘In fairness to Bertie, he is only saying publicly what many in Fianna Fáil have been whispering privately and not so privately for months’.
Not to be outdone on the social media platform, Martin responded by saying: ‘In the absence of any coherent answers to the big challenges facing our country and with no explanation for failure to meet virtually every target on housing and health, this is what the Fine Gael campaign has come to.’
Do the two party leaders not realise they are missing the bigger picture here? As Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil continue to trade digs, support for Sinn Féin rises. By publicly refusing to enter coalition talks with Sinn Féin, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are hindering, not helping, their own cause.
It is clear that the electorate wants change, especially among younger voters, where the catastrophic effects of years of austerity were felt the most. The parties may talk the talk on how they are different, but to many, they are two sides of the same coin.
It doesn’t matter to many if some of Sinn Féin’s policies seem ambitious, if not fanciful, from an economic point of view. They are generating serious momentum as we head towards February 8.
If Varadkar and Martin have serious ambitions about being Taoiseach going forward, they must accept this reality. Sinn Féin look set to play a significant part in the political landscape for 2020. The question now is, will it be Leo or Micheál who asks Mary Lou to dance?