elections – Page 4 – Slugger O'Toole

Will unionism’s long 2012 be seen as the year when the wave broke?

John Ó Néill on February 1, 2013, 10:37 am

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With the #flegs protests seemingly diminishing, it seems like a good time to wrap up where 2012 has brought unionism, although it can be pretty much summed up in one word – crisis. It was a year in which there were early signs of modest progress visible to DUP leader Peter Robinson in March and by November he felt confident to proclaim that the constitutional debate had been won. And remember, in 2012 we were told repeatedly how ‘Catholics’ were being taken within, and reciprocating, the embrace of unionist outreach. Looking past the rhetoric, …

Aaron & Brian’s Sunday View: the Census

Aaron&Brian on December 16, 2012, 5:50 pm

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The Irish Times led with, ‘There are just 54,000 more people from a Protestant background than from a Catholic one in Northern Ireland’. The headline figure, that most papers and the media noticed, was that the gap between Protestants and Catholics had narrowed to 3 per cent in the recent statistics released from the 2011 census. Bringing together the information on Religion and Religion Brought up in, 45 per cent of the population were either Catholic or brought up …

Pol junkies and their addictions: Elections are never never over…

Mick Fealty on June 7, 2012, 10:15 am

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I’m grateful to my cousin John for this one (who I understand very occasionally subjects himself to the ordeal of reading Slugger)… Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty

Why the ‘sacred myth’ matters more than money in politics…

Mick Fealty on March 20, 2012, 5:20 pm

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I had this piece slipped to me a couple of days ago when we were up to our eyes in a very local form of culture war in Armagh by an English colleague, John Pollock. It’s very focused on trying to explain how to follow voter sentiment in the upcoming US general elections. My apologies for quoting almost the whole thing entire but it’s had hard to know where to split it: The key to understanding tribal behavior is not …

Lab + SF = FF + FG + 18.4%: #aras11 warm down

John Ó Néill on October 29, 2011, 12:19 am

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Presidential elections don’t tend to tear the space-time fabric of Irish politics. But as mood shifts, Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese both managed to encapsulate subtle moves away from the manichean nonsense of patrician Catholic ‘civil war’ politics south of the border. The soon to be returned 9th President, Michael D, will happily cite them as examples of why any judgement on him should be deferred to hindsight. At least he won’t be burdened by the dire forecasts that the 8th President carried into office with her. While …

Sinn Fein: limited political ambition?

Turgon on June 9, 2011, 10:44 pm

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The row over Mary McArdle shows no sign of abating yet and the one over Sean McGlinchey the new mayor of Limavady seems to be gearing up. There are of course a variety of other Sinn Fein members with significant terrorist pasts: the News Letter produced a list of these individuals last week. Various explanations have been proffered: rewards for “old soldiers” and reassuring the hard line republican base seem to be amongst the most convincing; winding up unionists is …

Vote share 1996 – 2011

Blank on May 8, 2011, 4:08 pm

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Time for a chart: Blank

#LG11 Open Thread: The Council contest…

Mick Fealty on April 28, 2011, 12:46 pm

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If you want a more detailed piece on some of the issues at play, have look at John’s post from Monday. But this is an opportunity to flag council contests we should be keeping an especial eye on for Monday and Tuesday following the Assembly and AV counts. As an additional thought, if you are going to be at any of the counts (ie, Council, Assembly or AV referendum) and are willing to share thoughts, insights and information, drop me …

An honest broker?

Blank on April 12, 2011, 7:38 pm

| Readers 39

Gerry Adams TD has been calling for talks with those that killed PSNI Constable Ronan Kerr. He, like his entire party, have been absolute and unambiguous in their comdemnation of those involved but Adams at least has now expanded his party’s attack to other groups that clearly have no connection to the death. One of these groups, éirígí, has responded and as a result revealed while SF claim a willingness to have discussions on republicanism with those currently and actively engaged in armed actions they …

#AE11 Open thread: South Belfast (#bels11)

Mick Fealty on April 12, 2011, 9:42 am

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As Alan points out in South Belfast there are eleven parties standing candidates… but none of them are independents. Again, there’s not likely to be much play in the overall game.. It will be worth looking at Conall McDevitt’s (occasionally of this parish) performance who is standing for election for the first time having been co-opted for Carmel Hannah’s seat. He’s had plenty of time to build his provenance there, so he should be safe. Keep an eye on Máirtín …

#AE11 Open Thread: Strangford (#str11)…

Mick Fealty on April 8, 2011, 1:20 pm

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Okay, bit of a break there. I do want to get round to Foyle, since it is the only constituency I’ll be visiting on our #UTVtrip tweet up odyssey around Northern Ireland. As the Derry Wans might say, I’ll be leaving the best till last. Instead, I’m going to Strangford next, a place where boundary changes may force a couple of seat changes. There’s a couple of thousand Unionist voters coming in the south and maybe about 1k nationalist voters. …

#AE11 Open thread: South Down (#sdo11)…

Mick Fealty on March 31, 2011, 12:34 pm

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Okay, we’re going to run a series of open threads on a number of constituencies throughout the campaign. I’ve picked up South Down first partly because of John McCallister’s uncharacteristically undisciplined outburst last week. When you consider there is a boundary change in the north of the constituency that could take 2k Unionist votes out of the equation, it must be a pretty tough hill climb for him to get over the win line, not least because he was 2k …

AV Referendum: “politics, like life in general, is full of panaceas”

Pete Baker on March 16, 2011, 2:26 pm

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The Guardian’s Michael White is still undecided over AV or not AV ahead of the May 5 referendum. But in returning to the topic he makes an important point. In tough times, and easy ones, politics, like life in general, is full of panaceas: joining Europe (or the euro), going decimal, getting rid of the Windsors, putting fluoride into all drinking water, banning page 3 girls in the Sun, promoting complimentary medicine … In this case the Yes camp claims MPs …

Do local student sabbatical election winners go on to pursue political life post college?

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on March 3, 2011, 8:30 am

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With all this talk of Irish general elections and cricket victories, Slugger missed the chance to look at one of Belfast’s annual electoral events – the campaign leading up to the election of QUB Student Union sabbatical officers. The Gown has been following the process in detail with some great coverage in a series of blog posts looking at hustings, debates, interviews, turnout and the results. As often is the case, the campaign was brutal and emotional, and involved claims …

éirígí: they’re not an intervention – they’re aiming for 0.3% at best

Blank on February 2, 2011, 10:30 pm

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As we noted, at éirígí’s last Ard Fheis, they stated they would be making an ‘intervention’ in northern electoral politics. I recently suggested 22 council areas dissenting republicans considering electoral intervention could look at. Today, éirígí announced their candidates. A full two and it seems unlikely they will announce more. Two candidates, across 582 seats. That’s contesting 0.3% of the game at council level Some electoral ‘intervention’. Blank

Dublin Central: Mary Lou to rise again?

Mick Fealty on January 11, 2011, 5:46 pm

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For two days now, the Irish political press have been getting very excited about a meeting (and possibly a round of golf ) that Brian Cowen had with Seanie FitzPatrick… So far, well nothing more than that… Back at Drumcondra there’s a rather tetchy fight going on at the paper Cumann once owned and driven by one Patrick Bartholomew Ahern (soon to be ex) TD. Ahern’s brother Maurice has been flatlining there for the last few outings, but it’s thought …

Wikileaks: “Another idea sporadically under consideration…”

Pete Baker on December 13, 2010, 4:56 pm

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It’s an idea that has, probably, been overtaken by events… for now… But there is one more section from the US Embassy cables released by Wikileaks worth highlighting. A short note on the possibility of Fianna Fáil contesting elections in Northern Ireland from a cable dated 04 February 2005 8. (C) Another idea sporadically under consideration is that Fianna Fail could start competing in elections in Northern Ireland. The argument is that Fianna Fail’s best way of confronting Sinn Fein in …

Catalunya surely on the road to Independence

Dewi on December 6, 2010, 3:51 pm

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The Economist reports on last week’s Catalan elections. Barca v Madrid. There is now a clear majority of “sovereignists” and separatists in the Catalan parliament. A ruling by Spain’s constitutional court in the summer to water down a new autonomy statute—the results of a PP legal challenge—has raised the temperature. Polls at the time showed support for independence briefly rising to 50%, before slipping back in the autumn (one in ten voters backed openly separatist parties yesterday). In the end, …

The global parish pump and benchmarking by-elections.

John Ó Néill on November 25, 2010, 12:46 pm

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After days and days of posturing and throwing shapes in Dublin, none of the principle actors have changed chairs and all that has been issued is a four year plan that might have been written two years ago. For all the unachieved drama, all that seems to have actually happened is that whatever sovereignty remained to the Republic of Ireland has been outsourced to anyone with a cheque book (and deep pockets). Ironically, with no money in the budget to allow them to buy off the electorate, the …

As Donegal South West goes to the polls….

Mick Fealty on November 25, 2010, 12:11 pm

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Pretty much all of the Donegal world agus a bhean chéile thinks Pearse Doherty is going to top the poll with ease this time out. Since they managed only to scrape 8k last time out, that’s likely to be a game changing moment for the party. On the ground, Sinn Fein have run a pretty canny campaign. In contrast with the 2007 general election, there is little evidence of Gerry Adams on any of their posters. In fact they’ve put out …