Formidable SF machine turns South

It's rather like the old Dublin Opinion cartoon of thousands of Corkonians heading for Dublin to take over the Free State civil…

It's rather like the old Dublin Opinion cartoon of thousands of Corkonians heading for Dublin to take over the Free State civil service: at the moment battalions of Northern Sinn Féiners are preparing to wheel south to join their comrades on the canvass. They're off to Dublin and most other constituencies in the green, in the green, writes Gerry Moriarty.

And as Northern Ireland is for once standing back from the edge of the precipice, it allows the politically astute folk up here to track with fascination, and with either hope or anxiety, Sinn Féin's progress in the Republic's general election as it pursues its very large political ambitions.

Instead of the usual diet of political wrangling on BBC Northern Ireland and UTV many people here will be buying more Dublin-based papers and tuning into Sean O'Rourke and David Hanly on radio, and John Bowman and Miriam O'Callaghan when they can receive RTÉ television, and to Eamon Dunphy when they can break through the static on Today FM.

It will be something of a culture shock but it will be absorbing and intriguing for them, particularly as they observe the discomfort of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour as, to paraphrase Parnell, they try to fix a boundary to the march of Sinn Féin. People here in the North are familiar with the Sinn Féin electoral machine; they have witnessed its blitzkrieg effect; they realise Southerners don't quite know what they are in for.

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In 1982 Sinn Fein fought its first electoral battle in Northern Ireland. It won 10 per cent of the vote in the Assembly elections.

Progressively through the past 20 years it has more than doubled its strength and is now the largest nationalist party in the North. If it achieves its current opinion poll rating of 8 per cent in the general election in the South, how much better will it do in the local government elections in the South in two years and in the general election four or five years on?

If the North can be used as a yardstick then Sinn Féin's rise in the Republic should be inexorable and relatively swift. Fianna Fáil may be too cute an adversary even for Mr Adams and Mr McGuinness but in time Labour's position as the third party in the Republic could be challenged. Some friends and colleagues in Dublin tell me, however, that the South is different, that the sectarian, tribal nature of what passes for much of politics here in the North cannot be replicated and would not be tolerated in the Republic. It's bread and butter issues that count, they say.

Indeed the wind could be taken out of Sinn Féin's sails if only the sitting TD, Mr Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin, is returned. Moreover, the party could be vulnerable if it is seen that the likes of Ó Caoláin, Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness and Pat Doherty are handling all the difficult media discussions. It would convey the impression of Northern command running the Sinn Féin election and of the other candidates not being up to the debate. Still, current odds are that Sinn Féin should take two or three seats and with good fortune on its side its tally could rise to four, five, six or even more seats.

A number of elements are in its favour. For one there is a protest vote out there that the party can tap into, the vote that prior to the Labour merger allowed the Workers' Party/Democratic Left at the height of its popularity to gain seven seats. Additionally there is also a diehard united Ireland constituency that feels it is not properly represented in the South. Notice how strongly Sinn Féiners focused on a united Ireland at the Easter commemorations.

And similar to Northern Ireland there are also the young, cosy radicals, smitten by the whiff of cordite yet comfortable that this is a party of peace-makers. They are too young to have a real memory of the Teebanes, Enniskillens, La Mon, Shankill Road and human bomb IRA atrocities that prevent many of the generation above them voting Sinn Féin.

This all makes Sinn Féin a formidable force in the coming election. Throw in some timely IRA decommissioning and who knows what Sinn Féin could achieve. At the very least it should gain a strong foothold in the South in May. It has the workers, the commitment, the money and the resources to build on such a foundation in future campaigns.

The Fine Gael leader, Mr Michael Noonan, has observed that people either vote for candidates or for the political brand name. Sinn Féin here is going for brand, depicting Gerry Adams as a sea-green incorruptible, a modern Eamon de Valera of Irish politics. It would be unwise to scoff. "We are going to use Gerry mercilessly," one of Mr Adams's chief lieutenants tells me.

The Teflon factor applies here, too. Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness are associated with an organisation responsible for more than half the killings of the Troubles. Yet they are viewed with Mr John Hume as the architects of the peace. It all seems deeply unfair to the SDLP and probably now to established politicians in the South.

A senior SDLP figure remarked to me yesterday: "Politicians in the South will underestimate Sinn Féin at their peril." And how Sinn Féin performs in the May election will have very real repercussions for the SDLP. "If they do well it could affect us in the Assembly elections next year because nothing succeeds like success," he added.

He did not subscribe to the idea that what's good for Sinn Féin is good for the peace process because it brings republicans deeper into the system. "This is an occasion when the process can look out for itself. Sinn Féin is a real threat and politicians in the 26 Counties better wise up to that fact," the fearful politician added.

Gerry Moriarty is Northern Editor of The Irish Times