General election on May 24th

Youth Voice: Oh it's on!

After two years of revving the engines of their bumper cars, all the parties are finally off the line and bashing into each other in earnest.

The circumstances under which the election was called should set an interesting tone for the next few weeks of campaigning. In what is a significant change in protocol, Bertie did not announce the election in the Dáil (Pat Rabbitte called this “disrespectful”), instead asking the President to dissolve the Dáil on Sunday morning before she headed off on holiday. Add to that the fact that the date for the election, Thursday May 24th, has left a bad taste in more than a few mouths; especially amongst students, people who work away from home, commuters and anybody else for whom a Thursday vote is an inconvenience. Seemingly the Taoiseach has no problem dissolving the Dáil at the weekend but voting during it is a different story altogether.

Thursday voting or otherwise, if recent polls are anything to go by this election is going to be tighter than Scrooge’s bicycle shorts. Fine Gael will be delighted by polls printed last week in the Irish Independent and Irish Times that have them polling 26% and 31% respectively, which is, in a word, huge. With Fianna Fail polling 34% that could realistically put Kenny and co within ten seats of FF by the end of it all. However, all will hinge on how well Labour and the Greens do and their poll numbers weren’t much to write home about.

So, as the country seems to hang so delicately on the balance what can we expect from the ensuing campaign? A lot of big talk, for a start. Already Michael McDowell (Ireland’s answer to stone-faced cop Rex Banner from The Simpsons) has been filling airtime saying that the PD’s will yet again confound expectations, win twelve seats and continue on to deliver their vision of the future in government. It’s unclear in what parallel dimension he thought this would be happening.

You can expect McDowell and Pat Rabbitte (who, to extend the metaphor within an inch of it’s life, is Ireland’s Beer Baron) to go at each other with knives for the duration of the campaign. Political knives, of course.

That leaves Bertie and Enda but I can’t see this one turning out as the Presidential style election everyone thinks it will. For all of Fine Gael’s newfound popularity, Enda cannot and will not win a popularity contest against Ireland’s own diamond geezer Ahern, so expect to see a concerted team effort from them.

Meanwhile, Bertie is becoming more like Eamon deValera every day in his tactics. Dev used to be the only man who had the audacity to call elections unexpectedly, pull shamelessly self-serving strokes like the Thursday voting, leaving constituencies under-represented or casting aspersions on the opposition with such disparaging gems as “sure you don’t know what you’re getting” and “a mix of blue (Fine Gael), green (erm, the Greens), red (Labour) and redder (is Gorbachev running this time or something?)”.

Either Bertie is joining the pantheon of Fianna Fail greats or he’s getting serious delusions of grandeur. We’ll find out which in three weeks time.

It’s barely a day since the election date was announced, but already the posters are being put up and the canvassers are out in force. This is going to be a fun few weeks…

By: Paddy Duffy

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