Fianna Fáil/Progressive Democrat (FF/PD) coalition elected in traditional political system is that the
June 1989:, was way ahead in the opinion polls with over 50% intensity of the attack on real wages necesof the vote. The only point of interest was that Robinson was sary for UK capital to compete in Europe finally threatens the stability of a righttaking just over 30% of the vote and the candidate of Fine Gael wing Labour government carrying out a
(traditionally the second most popular party in the state),
"pro-European" policy.
Austin Currie, was trailing a poor third with only 14%.
Continued resistance to
Labour right
Resistance to Kinnock in the trade unions and Labour Party, with the left weakened but not eliminated, continues to disturb capital. The latter's goal of eliminating Labour's deep structural links with the unions and reorganizing it as an essentially West European social democratic party has still not been reached.
The differences in the Tory party are not over how much, but merely over by what means, to attack the working class movement. Tactical miscalculations such as the poll tax may or may not go, but the core of
Thatcher's policies will continue.
Taken overall, despite the failure of her own project, hatcher played a decisive role for the bourgeoisie in attacking the working class — she was undoubtedly in this respect the most successful prime minister since the inter-war period. Under the impact of the split in 1981 Labour moved decisively to the right. The trade unions have been weakened. Thatcher's successors aim to build on these achievements for capital by integrating British capital more clearly into Europe while maintaining the scope of her attack on the working class — a policy to be pursued by
Tory, Labour or coalition governments.
There is undoubtedly widespread popular satisfaction that Thatcher has bitten the dust. But Euro-Thatcherism will turn out to be more vicious than Thatcherism mark one.
At the same time,
Euro-Thatcherism will confront a working class encouraged by the downfall of its most hated enemy.
Britain is entering a period of intense class
6 struggles. *
JOHN MEEHAN
F INE GAEL was desperately try-
Wing to regain ground, resorting to "red smear" tactics against Robinson, and suggesting that her views on social issues were too extreme. None of this was having any effect, so they turned their attention to Lenihan. The issue they chose was trivial, almost a joke. Fianna Fáil in February 1982 tried President Patrick Hillery not to grant the request of the Fine Gael Taoiseach (Premier), Garret Fitzgerald, for a dissolution of the Dáil (parliament) and an immediate General Election. Nobody tried very hard to deny this fact. Nobody cared too much about it, except Garret Fitzgerald
Fitzgerald confronted Lenihan on TV. The significance was supposed to be that Hillery had demonstrated his "independence" by rejecting the FF approaches Lenihan however, according to Fitzgerald, was such a party hack that he would do anything that was asked of him.
amazement, Lenihan denied that these events ever took place. The row rolled on for a couple of days and disaster struck the FF candidate. A politics student, Jim Duffy, produced a interview — done last May -where Lenihan gave an entirely plausible and detailed account of the events in early 1982. Not two hours later, Lenihan came on TV, turning his face away from the interviewer, towards the camera, and again denied everything
The Richard Nixon-style tactics failed lamentably. The affairs is derisively nicknamed "Parkgate" after the location of the President's mansion in Phoenix Park.
Lenihan's campaign hit the rocks, and the opposition parties tabled a motion of no confidence in the Dáil. The PDs demanded Lenihan's sacking. At first FF leader Charles Haughey fought tough. But an hour before the crucial vote, he sacked his "old friend of over 30 years" who had stubbornly refused to resign.
No pity for the amiable bad guy
FF then turned around and asked the voters to elect Lenihan as President. It was hoped that trouble inside FF could then be avoided - after all, Lenihan would have had to resign from the government anyway if he won the election, so what difference would a week make? In the soap operas people feel sorry for the amiable bad guy, so why shouldn't life imitate art?
Lenihan regained some of the ground he had lost, but not enough. His campaign became extremely dirty. One FF TD (MP) suggested Robinson would open an "abortion clinic/abortion information centre" in the Park; a government minster suggested she had a "new found" interest in her family; Haughey tried the red scare tactic with dire warnings of a Communist conspiracy. The finishing touches were added at ground level, with one story about Robinson being a lesbian.
All this was designed to hit a woman who had taken on the Catholic Church for over 20 years on contraception, divorce, and the right to information on abortion. It had particular significance because there were major defeats for the Irish women's movement in the 1980s in two referenda.
In one referendum, right wingers successfully inserted a constitutional clause making the legalization of abortion impossible; in another the Catholic right prevented the removal of a constitutional ban on divorce. In both these campaigns, Robinson was prominently identified with the losing side. But Fianna Fáil's mud did not stick. After the farce of "Parkgate", too many of their very loyal supporters had deserted to Robinson and were not coming back.
Opposition to reactionary moral code
Without going into hyperbole, that development on its own can be seen as a small source of hope for progressive forces in Ireland. It is the first time that a candidate with a record of opposition to the Catholic Church's reactionary moral teachings has ever taken elective office in a statewide poll. It is the first time ever that FF has lost a presidential election. The winning candidate had been nominated by the weak left reformist parties and the Greens, who between them got only 16% in the 1989 general election. But — and it is a big but — Mary Robinson's victory underlines the extreme fragility of the bourgeois party system in the 26 counties.
The Robinson campaign played cleverly on the weakness of the big parties. It was stressed that the Presidency is largely a ceremonial and powerless office. Thus anyone who had doubts about Robinson's views, could be assured that the contest was less important than a general election. An example of this comes from Galway - students at the University there, ME?
like many others throughout Ireland, are illegally publishing information for women on how to get an abortion outside Ireland. It is the subject of a long drawn out legal battle, and to her credit, Robinson has legally represented the students in court. So, when Robinson was asked would she still support this line when elected President, she said she couldn't because of the restrictions
On the other hand, in her victory speech, she declared that "Mna na hEireann" (women of Ireland) had stopped rocking the cradle and instead "rocked the system". While she successfully came across in the campaign as an antipolitician, she certainly uses one of the old dubious political tricks — long on rhetoric, short on substance.
The Robinson campaign was carefully constructed to be as inoffensive as possible. While most people knew her record on the controversial issues, they were hardly mentioned in the campaign literature. Early on in the campaign, a woman prominently identified with the struggle against the so-called "pro-life" constitutional amendment was first asked to direct Robinson's campaign and then dumped because of objections by Labour Party leaders and advertising representatives. because Robinson herself belongs to no party, she consistently denied being a
Given the abysmal record of Ireland's social democratic left — it has regularly been a coalition partner of Fine Gael in very right-wing administrationsRobinson's denial might not in itself have been open to criticism. But the failure to explicitly reject the rightwing Democrats/Pine Gael tells its own story.
Further, substantial criticisms can be made of her stance on the national question. Robinson resigned from the Labour Party after the signing of the Anglo-Irish agreement because she said it was too
ABORTION CONTRACEPTION 24HR CRECHES EQUALITY IN EDUC. JOB OM LEGAL/FIMANC INDEPENDENC RECOGNITION OF EQUAL PAY
IRELAND The shadow of the "Heavy Gang"
EX-IRISH PRIME MINISTER Garret Fitzgerald, who was instrumental in the downfall of Brian Lenihan (see article) has a record of making a big issue out of arcane constitutonal niceties, but blindly accept-
Ing any amount of thuggery by state forces. Fitzgerald was a lead. ing minister in the infamous Fine Gael/Labour government of 1973-
77 when a police "Heavy Gang" routinely tortured republican suspects, Things got so bad at the end of 1976 that new repressive legislation was blocked by the then Presi dent Cearbhall O'Dålaigh, a highly respected ex-judge with a civil rights background
A minister in this "Heavy Gang" government publicly denounced the President, a flagrant breach of the constitutional rules surround Ing the office. When this minister refused to resign and the government refused to sack him, O Dalaigh walked out in protest. A few months later this decrepit government collapsed to record defeat in a general election. One major reason for this was the shabby treatment of O' Dalaigh.
Throughout this sinister episode,
Garret Fitzgerald remained in the government.
hard on the Unionists. This was music to the ears of lan Paisley and other Loyalist dinosaurs, and has earned her the justifiable mistrust of militant nationalists. As against that, she does have a record of opposing repressive legislation, and her election sets up the possibility of a rerun of the Cearbhall O' Dálaigh affair of 1976
Lenihan's defeat opens up the race inside FF to succeed Haughey. Haughey, who had come through so many crises, and finally got the security he craved, is weaker than ever. Fine Gael's disastrous showing has already forced Alan Dukes out of the leadership to be replaced by the even more right wing John Bruton.
Labour won't get anything like Robinson's level of support in a general election, but has definitely strengthened its position.
Finally the result emphasizes what I said about the 1989 general election, that there is a weak radicalization going on.
The key thing for any left wing force is to stay out of coalition with the parties of the right — FF, PDs, and FG. *
1. See John Meehan: "Irish workers reject austerity",
International Viewpoint, #168, July 31, 1989.
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