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End to Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum Politics?
The results of the local and European
elections of last Friday were a watershed in Irish politics. Public anger in the
last general election (in 2012) brought to an end Fianna Fáil’s tenure as the
largest party in the Irish republic.
Popular disgust at the lies and betrayal of the electorate by the Labour
Party has ended its century-old status as the main left-wing force in Irish
politics and ushered in Sinn Féin as the new radical movement of the island of
Ireland. The division of political power between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael-dominated
governments, that has been a hallmark of the state since the early 1930s, has come to an end.
There are of course many good honest hardworking idealistic people in all of the established parties- Ciaran Cannon and councillor Frank Fahy in Fine Gael; Eamon O'Cuiv, John McGuinness and Noel Tracey in Fianna Fáil; Sean Sherlock and Billy Cameron in Labour. But they are too few; power and greed has corrupted too many of their colleagues.
When Michael D. Higgins left Labour after winning the Irish Presidency the party lost its conscience. Both Fianna Fáil and Labour have betrayed the egalitarian principles of their visionary patriotic founders.
The Cosy Cartel
This weekend's results show that there is now an alternative government-in-waiting
comprising progressive independents, socialists, republicans, environmentalists, community activists and beneficial
business interests that has the potential to break the three-party monolith and
its long time cosy relationship with property speculators, builders, top civil
servants, the trade union leaders, bishops, ranchers, bankers and the EU
hierarchy that has created a huge democratic deficit in this country and across
Europe that has led to growing public apathy and alienation with the body politic
due to the high levels of emigration, unemployment, corruption and taxes.
For the first time since we joined the EEC
in 1972, people are starting to question the never-ending loss of sovereignty
to a supra-national unrepresentative bureaucratic institution that has created
the environment and circumstances to privatise public services and sell off
national resources across Europe to multi-national corporations unaccountable
to its citizens.
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| Newly elected TD, Ruth Coppinger |
Of course the struggle for nations, local communities
and ordinary people to secure control over their destinies will take many more
years to achieve and will not be without heartbreak. Sinn Féin could lose their idealism and become over time corrupted by power. But the election results
today was a step forward hopefully to a better future for Ireland and Europe
that will be a true union of peaceful, democratic independent countries.
It will mean at last that the great untouchables such as Denis O'Brien and others, who as the Moriarty Tribunal showed undermined the democratic institutions of our state, can be brought to justice.
