Friday’s general election in Ireland seems to have changed the balance of power. The two major centre-right parties, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, will continue to play a decisive role in the formation of a new government, but they will need a new coalition partner because the Green Party is expected to drop from 12 seats in the lower house to just one.
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The reward for years of building up the party
Fianna Fáil can be delighted with this victory, writes The Irish Times:
“At [the government’s] centre will be Fianna Fáil, which is now the country’s most popular party at a general election for the first time in 17 years. Due to a combination of incumbency advantage, strategic canniness and luck, Fianna Fáil now holds a clear numerical advantage over Simon Harris’s Fine Gael. The result is a vindication for Micheál Martin, who has led his party back from the existential brink it faced in 2011. He has managed to do so without being blessed with an oversupply of visible talent on his own front bench.”
So much for the Greens of the Emerald Isle
The Irish Independent takes a look at the Green Party’s poor showing:
“It shouldn’t matter because the issues at the core of the Green Party’s time in office should by now be mainstream concerns. … Blame could attach to the larger parties for using green issues to virtue-signal when it suits and disowning them when the public grumbles. The Green Party may be due criticism for coming across as the no-fun party. The public, meanwhile, can behave like pre-schoolers declaring a preference for granny because she brings sweets while mammy wants them to eat broccoli.”
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