fine gael « Bakker Bugle Blog

9 May 2009

Dublin Politics = Face Posters

Filed under: culture,dublin,ireland,politics — Tags: councillor, dublin, face, fianna fial, fine gael, ireland, irish, labour, MEP, poles, political, politics, posters, representative — Will @ 11:33

This week brought the return of Anita’s beloved “face posters,” the primary form of campaigning that we’ve noticed. These posters, of uniform size and a standard design, are attached to nearly every pole in the neighbourhood. Here are two examples near Baggot Street:

faceposters08may09 `

The upcoming election (in Dublin) is for two levels of government: representatives to the local councils and to the European parliament. The newspapers lead me to believe that there is a close parallel between these elections and mid-term Congressional elections in the US. In both cases, the media and the parties take the results to indicate the popularity of the parties at the national level.

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2 March 2009

In the papers: Major Irish political parties stumbling

Filed under: ireland,politics — Tags: cowen, dail, dublin, election, fianna fail, fine gael, gilmore, government, green, ireland, kenny, labour, newspaper, parliament, parties, political party, poll, polls, popularity, sinn fein — Will @ 18:43

The falling popularity of two major political parties in Ireland would be no surprise to anyone who regularly reads the Irish daily newspapers. A recent poll covered by the Irish Independent gives the gist of the situation nicely, so I’ll link to four of the relevant articles here — along with some key quotes for those who want the shorter story.

First, a tiny bit of background information. (more…)

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13 June 2008

Lisbon Treaty: The Campaigns

Filed under: ireland,politics — Tags: campaigns, eu, european union, fianna fail, fine gael, ireland, labour, lisbon, politics, treaty — Will @ 16:47

At midday here in Ireland, the consensus was that the vote on the Treaty of Lisbon is too close to call. I find this remarkable, given that every political party holding seats in the Dáil (except Sinn Féin) endorsed the treaty. The major Irish political parties have impressive networks of party loyalists on the ground. Their networks seem more oriented toward mass mobilization than the US’s Democratic and Republican parties. While the US’s parties are fund-raising machines, they struggle with voters’ apathy and fragmentation on particular policies. So I assumed that the parties would get out the vote. But the relatively high turnout rate for this referendum appears to tell against ratification, according to the results so far.

Let’s look at the campaigns for and against the Lisbon Treaty, as I saw and heard them. (more…)