Party leader Mary McDonald has been campaigning fanatically for this in recent weeks. This distinguishes the party from Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, the parties who have shared power in Ireland for almost 100 years. They see nothing in a referendum about reunification with the north.
The current Prime Minister, Leo Varadkar of Fine Gael, has therefore ruled out a collaboration with Sinn Féin. The party leader of Fianna Fáil also showed Sinn Féin the door, but seems to reconsider that after the result: “I am a democrat. I listen to the people,” said Micheál Martin. Thanks to the district system, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil probably have more seats in parliament than Sinn Féin.
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Controversial
Sinn Féin has been controversial since its inception. “This is not a normal party,” Prime Minister Varadkar said last month. Sinn Féin originated from the Irish Republican Army (IRA), the terror movement that committed many attacks in the last century. After the 1998 peace agreement, the republicans finally exchanged the bombs for politics, but their dream of a united Ireland always existed.
Now that Sinn Féin has almost doubled in number of seats, from 22 to presumably 40, support for a united Ireland seems to have increased. At the same time, the bloody history of that ideal seems to fade into the background. Yet Sinn Féin was not only successful with his call for a referendum. Plans to build many more houses also attracted voters.
Sinn Féin says it could have won even more seats if it had nominated more candidates. The relatively short list of candidates shows that Sinn Féin had not counted on such a big success. “The voters want a different government,” says party leader McDonald. That the other parties may want to ignore Sinn Féin in the coming coalition negotiations, she calls “politically untenable.”
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London
They will also follow the coalition negotiations in London with suspicion. The Boris Johnson government sees nothing in a referendum on the Irish border. According to London, Northern Ireland must continue to belong to the United Kingdom.
Sinn Féin was also openly opposed to the brexit agreement that Johnson concluded last year with the Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar and the rest of the European Union. In the difficult negotiations that are still to come, which concern the trade agreement between the British and the EU, Johnson cannot use further rebellion in Dublin.
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Collaborate or exclude
A united Ireland is therefore higher on the agenda due to the gain of Sinn Féin, but whether a new government will really get to work on it? That depends on whether other parties now want to cooperate with Sinn Féin.
Sinn Féin may have to rely on a role as the largest opposition party, if the other parties together form a government. But the question is whether that is smart. Sinn Féin then threatens to become much bigger during the next elections. The party will then certainly nominate more than 40 candidates. Sinn Féin is also active in Northern Ireland. The party is in the government there.
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