THE prevailing view is that this was a boring election. This might seem to be confirmed by the fact that only two thirds of the electorate bothered to vote, a rate of turnout that was down almost two percentage points on 1992 and almost 10 since 1981. Though we pride ourselves on being a very political people, this gives us a rate of voter participation that is one of the lowest in western Europe.
Turnout was particular low in Dublin (62 per cent) and lower still in the mare working class Dublin constituencies (60 per cent).
For those who voted, however, the election may have been far less boring than commentators assume. It seems, at any rate, that the voters were responding to something or other. As we know from the overall result, their response took the form of massive defections from Labour, whose support was down nine percentage points nationally and 15 in Dublin. This shift in support was to the net benefit of Fine Gael on the one hand, and what might be described as anti establishment candidates on the other: On the basis of the innovative RTE/ Lansdowne Market Research exit poll, we also know that the propensity to change was much higher than these aggregate figures indicate: 25 per cent of those who voted in the 1992 and 1997 elections switched parties, 49 per cent of 1997 voters made up their minds during the campaign, and 55 per cent said they were floating voters. These may be signs of a restless electorate, but not necessarily of a bored one.
The real problem with the boring election thesis, however, is that it implicitly assumes that an election is simply a response to the campaign; if the campaign is lacklustre, the election is boring. Not so; no matter how late they decide, voters are responding not just to the campaign but to political events as they have experienced them since at least the last election.
Now the last 4 1/2 years in Irish politics have been anything but uneventful; the events in question encompassing a formation of an unanticipated coalition after the 1992 election; the initiation and then the stalling of the peace process; the arrival of an unparalleled economic boom and a succession of political scandals and crises; one of which toppled a government in midterm. The fact that the lose in Labour support dates back to early 1993 suggests that the roots of Labour's problems last Friday lie as much in events and how they have been handled as in the campaigning of the last three weeks. This is not to suggest that the alliance with Fianna Fail in 1992 was a mistake. It was certainly unpopular with some Labour supporters, but the real problem was that having made the choice initially, the Labour Party needed a full term in government to prove the wisdom of that choice.
In forging the opportunity of remaking the alliance with a Fianna Fail party led by Bertie Ahern in December 1994, Labour put paid to whatever chance there might have been of persuading its supporters that the crucial choice it had made in 1992 was the right one.
By changing horses in midstream. Labour also deprived itself of the possibility of making a credible argument that it was seeking reelection as part of a government that had presided over the economic boom.
Indeed, if the need to make this argument had been taken seriously, the government should perhaps have waited until the autumn and should have set out, not on a short campaign, but on a long march through the summer and early autumn to convince the voters (a) that the Celtic tiger was bringing them benefits and (b) that the Rainbow could handle it effectively. The RTE/ Lansdowne exit poll suggested there was room for persuasion on both fronts and that it might have borne electoral fruit.
This brings us to the paradox of this election: the poll confirms that 57 per cent of voters were satisfied with the way the Government was running the country, yet the governing parties could muster only 41 per cent of the vote. Apparently, a sufficient number of voters reckoned that the alternative combination could run the country equally well.
The most important other factors were crime, drugs and tax. But the poll also indicates that the range of voters' concerns is very wide. Yes, Irish voters (or 74 per cent of them to be precise) are candidate oriented, but in 1997, apart from the issues already mentioned, majorities were also exercised by the problem of Northern Ireland, the issue of honesty and integrity in politics and the choice of who would be Taoiseach. A significant minority (30 per cent) claim to have been influenced by the positions of the parties on the holding of an abortion referendum.
Talk of what might have been done differently in 1992 or 1994 or in preparation for an autumn election is, of course, idle speculation, booked at from the point of view of voter alignments and the party system, what we are left with is: a Fianna Fail party stuck on 39 per cent, though with a much better seat outcome; a somewhat revived Fine Gael; a badly battered Labour Party; a diminished Progressive Democrats party and Democratic Left; and a plethora of microparties and independents.
The key characteristics of the party system now are an increased fragmentation at the lower end and a series of successive failures to sustain an electoral breakthrough (Fine Gael in 1987, the Progressive Democrats in 1989, and Labour in 1997). The net result is a diminution in the capacity of the party system to deliver effective choice to the voters.