As readers of my series on the US elections will hopefully recall, I try to do my political analysis on the basis of hard data as much as possible. Personal impressions, anecdotal evidence, and debunking MSM media agendas will only get you so far.
So it’s great when a real, live, opinion poll comes along to confirm or confound your previous perceptions, not that I am an unalloyed fan of the genre. Hilary Clinton was, after all, so far ahead in the opinion polls before the first Democratic Primaries as to be almost out of sight.
Up until now in the European elections in Ireland, we have only had one recent Sunday Business Post Red C poll and some rather dubious projections by the Predict09.eu website which do not appear to take the complexities of the Irish three seat constituency single transferable vote proportional representation system into account, despite the presence of Michael Marsh, a distinguished Irish political scientist, on their editorial board.
But yesterdays Irish Times /TNS mrbi poll ticks all the boxes. Not only is the sample size (2000) big enough to yield a 2% margin of error, but the sample size for each of the four constituencies (500) is big enough to yield a 4% margin of error where it matters, at the level of each constituency.
There is no point in a party having 10% of the vote evenly spread across the country, when you need almost twice that in any one constituency to actually win a seat. What matters is whether your vote is concentrated enough around one candidate or constituency in order to come close enough to the 25% quota needed to beat all others for the last seat.
The impact of an electoral system on how politics are conducted is a subject which has always fascinated me, and I am a huge fan of the Irish system despite its apparent complexity and local peculiarities. It does allow for a mix of independents and party apparatchiks to be elected, and gives the voter the ultimate choice of not only party but candidates as well.
Last time around we had Fianna Fail (4), Fine Gael (5), Labour (1), Sinn Fein (1) and independents (2), all represented in the European Parliament. Before that the Greens had a seat despite a national vote of only about 5% at the time.
So what predictions are possible based on this latest poll? bearing in mind all the usual caveats about “a week is a long time in politics” and the fact that previous elections have seen some quite dramatic late surges by particular candidates
Dublin Constituency
There are four sitting MEPs for a constituency now reduced to three seats so one has to lose out. Gay Mitchell (Fine Gael) on 26% and Proinsias De Rossa (Lab) on 21% seem safe - the latter because he is also doing well on second preferences which should bring him up to the 25% quota. The last seat is a real dog fight between Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald (14%) and Fianna Fáil’s Eoin Ryan (11%) with the latter doing much better on second and lower preferences which may allow him to hang on. Failing to win a seat in the Capital would be a real blow to Fianna Fail’s Leader and Taoiseach Brian Cowen’s credibility.
East Constituency
Mairéad McGuinness (FG) on 33% is way ahead of the quota (of 25%) and should be easily elected on the first count. Ironically this may militate against Fine Gael retaining their second seat in the constituency as their second candidate John Paul Phelan (FG) is way behind on 9%, and although he will get the bulk of Mairéad’s surplus (33% - 25% quota = 8%) there is a tendency for many of a party’s first preference voters to give their second preferences to other parties/candidates (on regional, gender, or personality grounds). So he may only get c. 5% of that surplus bringing him up to 14% - still behind Nessa Childers (Lab) on 17% first preferences - who is also doing well on second preferences from other candidates/parties.
If Fine Gael could “manage their vote” by encouraging far more of their supporters to give their first preference to John Paul Phelan so that both he and Mairéad McGuinness were on c. 21% each, they would have a far better chance of retaining both seats as both could then still pick up lower preferences votes from minor candidates on their elimination and thus edge up towards the 25% quota. (In practice, the final successful candidate never has to reach the 25% quota because some votes “die” with a minor candidate because some voters have not expressed a lower preference. Thus if a voter votes e.g. no. 1 Green and gives no lower preferences to any other candidate, that vote dies when the Green Candidate is eliminated as the lowest remaining candidate in the poll).
Liam Aylward (FF) on 19 per cent seems safe once he receives a reasonable transfer from his party running mate.
South Constituency
Brian Crowley (FF) 27% should be safely above the quota and thus elected on the first count (when only first preference votes are counted). Seán Kelly (FG) 17%, a former president of the GAA and first-time candidate should be safe after his running mate, sitting MEP Colm Burke’s 10% of the votes are distributed based on his voters’ second preferences.
That leaves Labour’s Alan Kelly (13%), current Independent MEP Kathy Sinnott (12%) and Sinn Féin’s Toireasa Ferris (12%) in a scrap for the last seat. My guess is that Labour will be better able to attract lower preference votes as both Sinn Fein and Kathy Sinnott (conservative catholic) have been somewhat more polarising candidates/parties, and if a voter doesn’t give them their first preference, they are less likely to give them a lower preference vote.
Liam Aylward (FF) on 19 per cent seems safe once he receives a reasonable transfer from his party running mate.
North West Constituency
MEP Jim Higgins (FG) 20% and former MEP Pat “The Cope” Gallagher (FF) 19% are safe once they get a good proportion of their party running mates lower preference vote transfers.
The North West’s other sitting MEP, Independent Marian Harkin (18%) is slightly more vulnerable but has not been a particularly polarising candidate and thus should do well on transfers. Declan Ganley (9%) is apparently attracting only 3% of second preferences votes with little support outside his native Galway. No figure is given for Labour’s Susan O’Keeffe’s support, but her second preferences are likely to favour Harkin rather than Ganley on both gender and ideology grounds.
Analysis
Having said all that, you can’t fault Libertas for not trying to stir things up, with controversies about immigration and Lech Walesa:
Libertas accused of being ‘fascist’ over migrant plan - The Irish Times - Sat, May 16, 2009
The party’s Dublin candidate, Caroline Simons, said yesterday that the immigration issue was the “elephant in the room” in the European election campaign.
She said that Libertas was calling for the adoption of a “blue card” throughout the European Union that would allow a citizen of the EU to live in another member state for up to two years as a guest worker as long as they were not a burden on the receiving state.
I wonder how such a “Blue Card” scheme will play with Libertas’ new found allies in eastern Europe?
Walesa expected in Ireland for Libertas election rally - The Irish Times - Sat, May 16, 2009
SOLIDARITY CO-FOUNDER Lech Walesa is expected to address a Libertas European election event in Ireland in the coming days.
The former Polish president has been attacked as a “disgrace” at home for appearing at Libertas events in Rome and Madrid – for a reported fee of €100,000.
As the European election enters its final phase, Mr Walesa’s reported five-city tour is also likely to include an address in Warsaw. Any such appearance will be a controversial one for the Polish icon many of his countrymen have accused of selling out.
It is unlikely that either controversy will do much for the Libertas vote but it is still early days in the campaign and my predictions below can only be based on the data in the latest opinion poll.
Prediction (based on this weeks poll)
Fianna Fail 3 (seats down from 4)
Fine Gael 4 (5)
Labour 3 (1)
Sinn Fein 1 (1)
Independents 1 (2)
(10 votes, average: 4.40 out of 5)
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As an example of how parties try to “manage” their vote in order to maximise their chances of winning more seats see the following:
McGuinness told to honour vote deal - The Irish Times - Wed, May 13, 2009
There’s no way Libertas should be able to claim that they’re pro-European now: attacking the free movement of workers, one of the four freedoms of the single market, should put that to rest, even if Libertas’ continental candidates don’t.
You’re right that Libertas are very good at stirring up public interest, but I don’t think that lurching further right is going to win them much more support. I suppose they’re caught in a trap where they need to get noticed, but in order to have a hope of winning a seat, they need to become more moderate and attract a larger support base.
Will Walesa be able to win them more support? It’s likely that any article about him and Libertas will include the fact that he’s getting paid for it.
Basides that, it’s looking good for Labour!
I think they’ve been totally opportunistic both on Lisbon and on the current elections in latching onto issues which their market research shows to have some popular concern but which are not being actively pursued by other parties.
With 300,000 people losing their jobs this year and next there is no way that “foreigners taking our jobs” isn’t going to be an issue and yet all the other parties have been responsible enough not to raise it.
There is a danger that Libertas’ support may be under-reported if poll interviewees are embarrassed to admit they really are concerned with such issues.
Still Ganley has a long way to go to get a seat, and their other candidates seem to be off the scale with their Dublin candidate on 1% and Raymond O’Malley’s support not reported in the story.
PS - I would loved to have been able to raise the immigration issue with Raymond O’Malley in my interview, but they hadn’t raised that issue at that stage. I would have thought it was quite damaging to their east European allies as well as, as you state, undermining his claims to wanting a more democratic EU. Still, there is a market for xenophobia everywhere, isn’t there?
I can’t pretend to have followed all of that (I was teaching until 9pm last night and then another 4 hours this morning - so lack of both sleep and coffee might have something to do with it) but your title should have warned me this would be a number-crunching post.
If you had to summarise: is this a poll that suggests the overall status quo will be maintained - or might there be a shake-up?
Hi, Eurocentric,
I liked your latest post about Libertas, btw. I have a question, and I’ll post it here because I’d be interested in Frank’s opinion too.
How is the slowdown in the Irish economy affecting immigration? I’ve read that many in the Polish community, for example, are leaving because they’re unable to find jobs. Is immigration still an issue?
@ Frank
You’re right, and it would be naive of me to think that Ireland would be somehow special among countries in that respect. Still, I hope that it hasn’t gained that sort of ground to become a decisive issue (or decisive enough to elect a Libertas candidate).
@ Julien
I don’t know about the figures for immigration and returning immigrants. I’ll try to look it up sometime, but I don’t have that much time at the moment for research, so it’ll be a while before I get around to it.
FrankShnittger,
300,000 of your fellow citizens have lost their jobs with more to follow and you say the established parties have been “responsible ” not to raise this issue !?
So this is what the EU project does to the ordinary citizen.
What issues can be talked about and what others cant be to be compatable with the EU elite ?
Robin - The 300,000 is a peak to trough estimate - unemployment has gone up by c. 150,000 so far (I need to check the figure). Of course unemployment is and should be the major issue. That doesn’t mean we should blame it all on “foreigners”. We were glad enough tpo have them working here when the economy boomed, and Irish people have traditionally sought employment abroad. We have signed up for an EU without (long-term) barriers to the movement of people in search of work, and have benefited greatly from that freedom. We should not, therefore, seek to deny that freedom to others now that it is no longer in our short-term interest. Longer term we all benefit from the freedom of movement the EU confers.
Josef.
Fianna Fail did very badly in the last European elections in terms of seats as well, and could afford to lose some more votes whist still clinging on to their existing level of seats, although at the moment they look likely to lose one on Dublin.
Fine Gael did exceptionally well last time but may well lose a seat in Ireland East this time because of poor campaign management - despite gaining even further in terms of votes.
Labour could well increase from 1 to 3 seats and would be the major gainers in that case.
Overall the results won’t be cataclysmic because Fianna Fail are coming off such a low base and as people treat these elections as an opportunity to cast a mid-term protest vote. The Irish political system has so far proved to be remarkably resilient in the face of unprecedented economic collapse. Of course you could take the contrary view that the political classes are totally out of touch with the reality on the ground!
Eurosceptic - I don’t have recent figures to hand, but my recollection is that the level of immigration has declined steeply and many recent immigrants may have returned home when they lost their jobs or couldn’t find another one. Nevertheless immigration has the potential to become a “racist” issue because many recent immigrants still have jobs whilst many Irish people have lost theirs.
There is also the usual “welfare issue” of immigrants staying on the dole here because Irish unemployment pay rates are much higher than almost anywhere else. There have also been reports of immigrants who have returned to their country of origin whilst still claiming unemployment and child benefits here.
The €200 a week dole payment for a single person in Ireland is much higher than is available in many other countries, and that amount of money can also stretch a lot further in countries with a lower cost of living.
FrankShnittger,
I hope that a responsible political party would raise the issue about unemployment in its own country. Even the lower figure of 150 000 seems about 10% of the workforce in a country of 6 million.
Many Irish have emigrated, even before the EU, and some have returned . But most have stayed, and not gone to other countries, so the benefits of free movement of people have not helped them. In fact ,it would appear detrimental to their life, and that`s just talking about the economic aspects.
Are you sure all you Irish were glad to have migrant workers in when the economy boomed ? It`s not the impression given to me .
Robin - Much of the later stages of the Celtic Tiger was based on migrant labour - which raised living standards for all. Now, of course, the economic depression falls disproportionately on those who have lost their jobs, and some resentment towards “foreigners” who still have jobs may be natural.
But the success of the Irish economy, both past and future, is still largely based on access to the large markets that the EU confers. Demonising foreigners who work here doesn’t solve anything.
FrankSnittger,
That would imply the Celtic Tiger economy only took off from near day one of when the NMS came into the EU, whereas we thought it had been booming for years before that.
How did the migrant workers help your economy ? In the UK it was by filling a few gaps in the skills market but mainly by lowering the wages.
Access to markets is not,outside the plans of the EU, neccesarily comcomitant on free movement of labour.
Also if it`s like here in the UK, it`s not the demonising of foreigners so much as demonising of the system and those who regulate it. Justifiably no doubt.
TH!NK ABOUT IT - european blogging competition 2009 » Blog Archive » Data, Data, Data!
Please note I said “the latter stages of the Celtic tiger” when unemployment went down to 3.5% (i.e. virtually full employment), total employment doubled from 1 Million (before the Celtic Tiger) to two million, and when c. 200,000 of those employed where migrants from outside Ireland.
The vast bulk of these migrants came after Enlargement and filled jobs in the building and tourist industries where there simply weren’t enough Irish people available. It is not their fault that the bubble we created in the building industry has now burst.
Neither can they be blamed for depressing wage rates, because Irish wage rates continued to rise (way above UK rates) to the point where Ireland became totally uncompetitive.
Poll shows increased support for Lisbon treaty - The Irish Times - Sun, May 17, 2009
Frak Shnittger,
Was it a wise move for the Irish establishment to base the latter stages of Irelands boom on migrant labour ?
Did the wage rates of those on the lowest rung of the latter become untenable ?
No it wasn’t. When Ireland joined the Euro it gained greatly from currency stability and low interest rates but it also lost control of monetary policy. When those low interest rates fueled a property and general economic boom the Government should have applied the brakes through counter-cyclical fiscal policies.
Instead it added fuel to the fire with additional tax reductions and expenditure increases. Wages at all levels of the economy became unsustainable - frequently twice UK rates! - so now we have a very painful and belated correction. But we have no one to blame but ourselves even if the ECB was less than helpful with its interest rate policies - at first too low, then too high - from an irish perspective.
FrankShnittger ,
(My aplogies for bad typing and getting your name wrong, I do it on the hoof).
I agree with your last post, but would like to add that perhaps the Irish workforce had to be expensive, like the British workforce, because the cost of living was so high.
Importing cheap labour, mainly young males, who can send high value currency back to their homeland where it would be worth at least 5 times as much seems unfair to the family man of Ireland (who shouldn`t be expected to live in shared accommodation while others are buying property back in the Eastern Bloc.)
Also the migrant workforce didn`t go to Ireland for altruistic reasons. Why shouldn`t they expect to leave when times are hard ?
I want to express my admiration of your writing skill and ability to make reader to read the while thing to the end..