The Election and the Party System

Abstract

Many keen observers of Irish elections see these as unique events. They scramble to weigh the results of recent opinion polls and to assess the predictions of informed analysts in an effort to arrive at their own forecasts regarding the outcome, resting their examinations mainly on immediate domestic factors. The 2002 election indeed had a number of unique features, some of them suggesting that the outgoing governing parties would perform badly. During the five years of the 28th Dáil, a series of revelations about political corruption had emerged from tribunals of inquiry, the government’s plans to sell off large segments of the state sector had foundered as shares in the newly privatised telecommunications company (Eircom) plummeted, and the government had suffered a humiliating defeat in the referendum on the Nice Treaty. It is true that there were also dramatic successes. Peace in Northern Ireland had been underpinned in 1998 by the Good Friday Agreement, and the economy was booming; but the first of these was of low political salience and the second had arisen largely from factors over which the government had little control (though it is likely that many voters nevertheless gave the government some credit for this).