Ireland’s Green Party Is Ready to Help the Right Stay in Power
Ireland’s conservative establishment was on the ropes after February’s shock election result. But Leo Varadkar’s caretaker government has exploited the COVID-19 crisis to regain his authority — and is now counting on the Greens to keep the center-right parties in power as a recession looms.
US speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar elbow-bump each other during the annual Friends of Ireland luncheon at the Rayburn Room of the US Capitol March 12, 2020 in Washington, DC. Alex Wong / Getty
Ireland’s last election was a crushing defeat for the conservative political establishment. Sinn Féin came first with 24.5 percent of the vote, overturning an electoral system historically dominated by the center-right outfits Fine Gael (FG) and Fianna Fáil (FF).
These parties, whose dividing lines owe more to rival cronyism than to ideological opposition, had alternated in government throughout much of the twentieth century. In 2016, waning popularity forced them to enter into an unprecedented confidence-and-supply agreement — with FF propping up a minority FG administration — which endured until February this year, when their combined vote share fell to a historic low.
This decline expressed two factors: a decisive rejection of the austerity program imposed after the financial crisis, and a recognition that Ireland’s widely touted “recovery” had left behind key sectors such as housing and health.
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