New Year’s election could see Martin’s time to shine

World of Politics with Harry McGee – harry.mcgee@gmail.com

The one thing we can say for sure is that we will have a general election in 2020 – even if nobody is quite sure when it will happen. My own view is that it will be in April or May (maybe that’s a bit of wishful thinking) but there is a chance that Leo Varadkar will pull the plug early and decide for a February election.

So who’s going to the next Taoiseach? As of now, I’d say Micheál Martin is the favourite. And we could end up with a situation where Fine Gael gets more of the popular vote but Fianna Fáíl gets more TDs and the key to Government Buildings in Merrion Street.

How could that be? Well every electoral system has its quirks and its drawbacks as well as its advantages.

If you look at the British system, it is first past the post in each constituency. It is efficient but it is ruthless. It favours a decisive result. In other words it is raked towards making sure a strong government can be formed. That’s why the dominant parties dominate more than they should.

The Liberal Democrats and the Green Party got millions of votes between them but ended up with only eleven seats, and one seat respectively – that’s out of 650.

That’s why it’s easier to predict which party will benefit if there are swings in support, even relatively small ones.

Our system is different. One of its great benefits is that it is proportional. So if a small party gets, say, seven per cent of the vote, it is likely that it will get in and around that number of seats.

There are downsides. In multi-seat constituencies the incumbent TDs from each party are as often bitter rivals with their own party colleagues as they are with their rivals from other parties.

Also, because old traditions don’t hold any more, a more dissolute form of electoral politics has emerged where it looks increasingly impossible for any party to have an overall majority.

At this moment, following Dara Murphy’s departure, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil has exactly the same number of TDs, 46 each, with Sinn Féin now at 22 (it has lost two TDs who defected in the lifetime of this Dáíl – Peadar Tóibín and Carol Nolan – and has gained a new TD, Mark Ward, in the by-election).

I think it’s possible that both big parties will add to their seats after the general election, at the expense of Independents.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

Get the Connacht Tribune Live app

The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.