South of the Border
Declan O'Niell
In the twenty six counties voters were electing
both Euro MEPs and local councillors. The big winners in the elections
were Sinn Fein, largely at the expense of the main government party
Fianna Fail. In the Euro vote the SF vote rose to 11% (+ 5%), and the
party took its first Euro seat in the South. The Greens lost both lost
both their European seats and their two representatives on Dublin
council, though they did pick up council seats elsewhere.
For the European elections Ireland was split into
four constituencies with MEPS being elected under the STV system. The
only far left candidate standing was Joe Higgins of the Socialist Party,
already an elected member of the Irish parliament, standing in the
Dublin Euro constituency. Joe received 23218 first preference votes
(5.5%) in the constituency, whilst the Socialist Party also had four
councillors elected.
Whilst the “mainstream Left” vote ( Labour party,
Greens and Sinn Fein) increased at the expense of the right wing
coalition government parties, Irish voters also endorsed a reactionary
amendment to the constitution, which will allow the government to remove
the automatic right to citizenship of anyone born on the island of
Ireland. This nasty xenophobic amendment was fuelled by unverified
stories of hundreds of foreign women arriving at Dublin hospitals in the
last days of their pregnancies in order to claim Irish (and hence EU )
citizenship for their children. To their credit SF, the Greens and the
Labour Party all opposed the amendment. Like the SEA they are also all
involved in the protests all being planned against George W. Bush’s
visit to Ireland on June 25th.
Read Declan's piece
Alternative Ulster, Alternative Europe here
June 2004