Libertas has suffered a triple whammy to its credibility as a force in Irish, never mind European politics, with the publication of an (PDF Alert) opinion poll showing it gaining only 2% of first preference votes in the European Elections in Ireland, losing 69 to 31% in a Lisbon referendum re-run, and with the remarks of it’s ex-Director in favour of ratifying the Treaty
IRELAND DOES not have the luxury of a second No vote in the Lisbon Treaty referendum and voters should vote Yes, one of the architects of last year’s Libertas campaign has said.Naoise Nunn, who resigned as executive director of Libertas last September said: “The circumstances have changed: internationally, economically, financially and domestically.
“We don’t have the luxury of doing anything else. I am glad that we had a referendum. We were the only member state to do so, to have a proper debate, or something like a proper debate,” Mr Nunn told The Irish Times .
His public declaration will come as an embarrassment for Libertas founder, Declan Ganley, who is running for the organisation in the European Parliament elections in the North-West constituency.
Both sides were guilty, he said, of “scare-mongering and misinformation” during the referendum campaign. Mr Nunn, who was one of the central figures in Libertas’s campaign last year, is understood to have written a detailed critique of Libertas’s performance last year for Mr Ganley’s attention before his departure last year.
In Ireland’s single transferable vote proportional representation system, Declan Ganley will have to achieve at least 15% of the first preference vote in order to be elected (plus c. another 10% of lower preference votes transferred from candidates with less votes on their elimination from the count). Even allowing for the fact that this poll is very early in the campaign, and the fact that we might expect Ganley to do better in his home constituency, achieving those sorts of numbers from such a low base is a very tall order.
Libertas has attracted quite a lot of negative publicity in both print and television media since the last Referendum campaign chiefly focusing on Ganley’s murky business dealings in Albania and eastern Europe, his close links with the US military industrial establishment, alleged ties to the US neo-conservative Heritage Foundation, and the lack of transparency surrounding Libertas’ funding.
Getting people to vote against a Treaty they are not sure about is one thing, especially when the vote can be cast as a vote against a remote “European Elite” and an extremely unpopular Irish political establishment. Getting people to vote for someone they are not sure about is quite another, and in a climate of distrust against entrepreneurial businessmen who are seen as the main authors of Ireland’s boom to bust economy, this may be a particularly inopportune time for Ganley to run.
There are also increasing signs of a popular campaign in favour of Lisbon as evidenced by a recently launched Pro-Lisbon Youth Group called Generation Yes. Younger voters voted predominantly against the Lisbon Treaty the last time around.
The Irish electorate also have a history of being quite discriminating in how they cast their votes, and may well exercise their animus against their Government in the European Parliament polls rather than through any re-run of the Lisbon Referendum. The same (PDF Alert) poll shows Fianna Fail - the lead Government party - down from 42% in the 2007 general election to a projected 23% in the forthcoming European Parliament polls. The chief beneficiary of their decline has been the opposition Labour Party which is up from 10% to 19% in the same poll leaving it in with a strong chance of increasing it’s representation in the European Parliament from 1 to c. 3 seats.
The Government’s cause was not helped by a recent re-shuffle when one of the sacked ministers, John McGuinness, hired Naoise Nunn to advise him on his caustic criticisms of the Tanaiste (deputy Prime Minister) and the Government in general:
Libertas spin doctor advised McGuinness
SACKED junior minister John McGuinness turned to a spindoctor who masterminded the Lisbon Treaty ‘No’ campaign for his public vote of no confidence in Tanaiste Mary Coughlan.
Dick Roche kept his portfolio as Minister for European Affairs and has promised me an interview for this blog. If you have any questions you would particularly like me to ask him, please submit them in the comments below!
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Cross posted on the European Tribune
Hi, Frank!
Great article - very well written!
I have one teeny piece of criticism, Frank… it’s that you wrote this very interesting article about Libertas, and then RIGHT AT THE VERY END you have a miniscule paragraph about how you will be interviewing a Fianna Fáil politician and you’re happy to take questions from your readers!!
When is your interview? Please, please, if you have time, put together a seperate post briefly profiling Dick Roche and asking for people to submit questions! This is a great opportunity and really deserves to be another post in itself. At the moment, your Libertas analysis is distracting from it!
Other than that, good stuff!
Joe
Many thanks, Josef. I don’t have a firm date for the interview yet and so I kept mention of it low key in case there is a problem with it. When I get a firm date I will post a separate story listing my proposed questions and inviting readers to submit their own.
Do you think FF’s candidate problems in the North West will have much of an impact on Ganley’s personal chances?
It would be nice to know if the Government/pro-Lisbon parties have a communication strategy and if they’ll highlight the benefits of the Treaty, rather than just the benefits of the EU in general.
I’m not sure how you could ask that without getting some vague reply, though…
Will FF TDs be trained/have a workshop on the Treaty so they can better argue its benefits?
And what issues will FF be particularly hoping to work on in the next EP? Will FF MEPs be sticking to the ELDR manifesto/how important is the ELDR manifesto to FF’s Euro election campaign? (I know FF just joined for the resources and because of unease with their fellow UEN parties, but it would be interesting to see what answer he’d come up with).
Good luck with the interview!
Thanks for the questions! I’ll do my best with them!
As regards the north West constituency, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael are pretty certain to get the first two, but the third and last seat is wide open. Independent Marian Harkin (Independent) won it last time but doesn’t seem to have had a high profile since.
The last seat in any constituency is generally won by a non-polarising “sweeper” candidate who picks up transfers from all the other eliminated candidates. Ganley and Sinn Fein are probably too polarising to fulfil this role, so the odds favour Harkin.
However Longford and Wesmeath have been added to the Constituency for the 2009 elections which might at a pinch) make Labour competitive for the last seat. Unfortunately the poll does not give a breakdown by constituency.
Thanks!
Firstly the poll included the paragraph:
“Libertas were also included in today’s poll for the European Elections, and given that they have had little coverage as yet, they do
relatively well to take 2% of the first preference vote, with most support evident in the East and South constituencies. They will however
need to gain a lot more support to come anywhere close to taking a seat.”
The sample used was also much to small to give an accurate reflection on the political feeling at the moment.
Naoise Nunn was hired to do a job, he has since left and owing to him working in the PR arena is, unsurprisingly, making hay when the opportunity presents itself.
But Libertas is more than just one man, it’s more than the Lisbon treaty and as the party convention in Rome will reveal it’s not going to be stopped by just one man and and article in the Irish times.
With regard to the funding of Libertas, all documents requested by SIPO were submitted and all outstanding issues were dealt with to the satisfaction of the Standards In Public Office commission. There is no issue, no dark cloud of no questions hanging over Libertas’ funding. Libertas was fully compliant with the laws as it always said it was.
Hi Al, Welcome to th!nkaboutit!
I presume you have a connection with Libertas. Would you like to declare an interest? To answer you point by point:
1. The fact that Libertas’ 2% support is concentrated in the east and south is even worse news for Ganley’s candidacy in the North West.
2. All Irish opinion polls tend to have a sample size of c. 1000 which yields a 3% margin of error Many opinion polls in the US only have a sample size c. 500 with a MOE of 4%. So it is a perfectly respectable opinion poll - although obviously the MOE for sub samples - e.g. for each individual constituency - will have a higher MOE which is presumably why those figures aren’t published.
3. When I had some dealings with Naoise Nunn at Libertas he seemed to be virtually a one man band - the website had very little content and membership figures were unavailable. I appreciate that Libertas has grown since and is no longer reliant on success only in Ireland.
4. As understand it, Ganley’s “loan” of €200,000 to Libertas circumvented the need for greater reported donations and will no longer be possible under electoral reforms currently under consideration. I’m sure you will agree that politics shouldn’t become the plaything of rich individuals who can afford to make such loans.