Is this Mary the answer to Tony's prayers?
MARY McAleese was elected Irish President with the largest majority in the history of
the 26 County State, but the size of the majority cannot conceal the deep divisions in the
Dublin ruling class revealed during the campaign.
She defeated the Fine Gael candidate and great niece of Michael Collins, Mary Bannotti,
who came in with 29%. The "left" candidate Adi Roche, supported by Labour,
Democratic Left and the Greens, dropped from being a front–runner to a poor 7% of the
vote on a turnout less than 50%, beaten even by Rosemary Scallon, better known as Dana, on
13%.
McAleese is almost universally hated by the Dublin media – her arrival at her
first press conference was greeted by hostile silence, very different from the cheers
which welcomed the election of Mary Robinson.
By origin, a working class Catholic, burned out of her West Belfast home by Loyalists,
she is disliked because of her traditionalist attitudes – she is anti abortion and
close to the church hierarchy – but even so more because of her Northern nationalist
background and what she represents.
Gerry Adams offered his support early in the campaign and this was the cue for a
concerted attempt to damage her campaign by portraying her as a closet Sinn Feiner. At the
head of the media pack was former leading member of the Workers Party and Sunday Times
asset Eoghan Harris, who played a leading role in Mary Robinson’s campaign, but
linking up this time with John Bruton’s Fine Gael. Apart from questioning how a
non-Irish person (sic) such as McAleese could become President, Bruton and Fine Gael were
said to be behind the leaking of a couple of Irish Government documents showing,
allegedly, that McAleese was a Sinn Fein fellow traveller.
The campaign misfired in the end: it irritated the republican instincts of Fianna Fail
supporters who had their doubts about the way in which McAleese (with the help of the
leadership) had elbowed Albert Reynolds out of the way.
McAleese’s vote in Dublin was low; clearly her Catholic conservatism did not go
down well in working class areas. In that sense she is a perfect representative of the
problems Sinn Fein have in relating to politics in the South: the majority of people want
Irish unity but it is not number one on their list of priorities.
Sinn Fein is too closely associated in their minds with the repressive, Catholic
outlook which for so long dominated the 26 Counties and which has now broken down in a
series of clerical scandals, 75 years after the foundation of the State.
What is now being demanded of McAleese is that she repudiate her nationalist sympathies
and "reach out" to Unionists, i.e. that she helps sell the revamped partitionism
emerging out to the "peace" talks to a doubting Southern (and Northern)
nationalists.
Fianna Fail voters need to be brought round to the new settlement which, the British
hope, will lead to the repeal of Articles 2 and 3 of the South’s Constitution,
thereby giving up the "claim" to the North or, more accurately, recognising the
British claim.
So, paradoxically, the election of the most pro-Irish unity candidate could prepare the
way for a settlement which copper bottoms partition.
The other significant feature of the election is the way in which it cements the Sinn
Fein/Fianna Fail Alliance, the pivot of the pan–nationalist front on which Adams is
relying to force enough concessions from the British in order to sell a settlement to the
base of the Republican Movement. The small proportion of the 26 County electorate which
votes Sinn Fein supported McAleese to a vote.
Fianna Fail leader Bertie Ahern will in the end dictate what the "nationalist
family" will accept from the British in return for repeal of Articles 2 and 3, but
even his legendary infighting skills won’t save him from the political fall-out from
the "peace talks".
Fianna Fail’s (and Sinn Fein’s) reason for existence is Irish independence
and national unity. They have not delivered on economic development except with the aid of
huge and (short term) EU grants. Should they be seen to fail on the question of unity,
then the gradual erosion of the party’s support since the Haughey era could become a
flood.
The Labour Party was the big loser in this campaign. Its candidate, Adi Roche, a soft
focus do-gooder standing on a platform of good intentions, was designed to repeat their
"success" with Mary Robinson in 1990.
She made little impact, apart from a few cringe-making remarks on opening the
Presidential residence for music sessions. For most Labour supporters such sentimental
blather couldn’t blot out the memory of Labour’s participation in the Rainbow
coalition with the conservatives of Fine Gael.
From a historically high vote of 19% and 33 seats, Labour are back in opposition with
10% and 17 seats. To make things worse, the defeat in the Presidential election has ruined
their hopes of supplanting Fianna Fail as the main opposition party.
The impact of the "peace" talks, whatever their outcome, is likely to be
highly destabilising on politics in the South of Ireland, and to Fianna Fail in
particular.
In this situation there is undoubtedly room for a socialist party with a correct line
on the national question. It is to this possibility that Irish socialists must bend all
their efforts.
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