Irish Election Looks Like a Lost Moment for Crisis-Hit Sinn Fein

(Bloomberg) - A year ago, rioters torched Dublin's city center in an explosion of the anti-immigration rage that populist politicians across Europe have exploited. For Sinn Fein, that anger has proved particularly disastrous.

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The country's main opposition political party has tapped much of the populist playbook in recent years to take advantage of broad public frustration about issues like housing. But as a left-wing party, it hasn't pushed the kind of far-right rhetoric that's become a vote winner for others.

As a result, Sinn Fein has lost support to figures whose messaging has proved more appealing to those concerned about the impact of rising immigration on already strained services. Those taking part in violent protests have even branded the party and its leader Mary Lou McDonald as "traitors" for failing to take a stronger stance.

Sinn Fein was previously riding high in polls after positioning itself as an alternative political voice. It looked like it might form the next government, in what would have been a historic moment for a one-time fringe party that was the political wing of the Irish Republican Army terrorist group.

But its numbers have since dropped sharply. More recently, a series of recent political errors and scandals have left Sinn Fein in crisis and undermined the standing of McDonald, on whom the party built its recent transformation and who had hoped to become Ireland's first female Taoiseach, as the prime minister is known.

Sinn Fein is scrambling to control the fallout and is now just three weeks away from an election, giving it very little campaign time to turn things around. Taoiseach Simon Harris, whose Fine Gael party is back on top in polls, said this week that a vote will take place Nov. 29.

"Where'd it go wrong? Well, immigration," said Jon Tonge, a professor of politics at the University of Liverpool. "You've had a perceived immigration crisis and a section of Sinn Fein's working class base basically felt that Sinn Fein no longer stood up for them because Sinn Fein could not go careering off to the right and become an anti-immigration party."

Sinn Fein's collapse is thought to be one of the main reasons that Harris is going to voters now rather than waiting for end of the government's five-year term early next year.

As the opposition party has slumped, his numbers have jumped since he took over in the spring. His approval rating in September was 55%, according to an Irish Times poll. McDonald was at 30%.

Still, Fine Gael and its coalition partner Fianna Fail can't write off the challenger. Between them, they've dominated politics since the state was formed and Sinn Fein can still sell itself as a much-needed change.

Poll Slump

In the Irish Times poll, Sinn Fein was on 20% support, down from as high as 36% in 2022, back when it seemed unstoppable. That year, it also became the biggest party in the regional assembly in Northern Ireland for the first time. Reuniting Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland is a core Sinn Fein policy, and not being in government makes it far harder to build momentum for that project.

As Sinn Fein rose into a formidable political force, it also tried to distance itself from association with the IRA's past campaign of violence. McDonald has been crucial to that remodeling. A middle-class woman from Dublin who went to private school, the 55-year-old has no connections to the so-called Troubles in Northern Ireland.

That's in stark contrast to her predecessor, Gerry Adams, who led the party for more than three decades. He was also allegedly an IRA leader, and considered such a threat that his voice was banned on British TV and radio stations for years.

"She was an important part of normalizing the party and moving it into the political mainstream and away from its more immediate connections to the conflicts," said Theresa Reidy, a senior politics lecturer at University College Cork. "She brought in more women in terms of their support base because Sinn Fein had a particular problem appealing to women."

But having led the party to new heights, McDonald is now mired in crisis fighting. She's also had to contend with issues in her personal life, including a cancer diagnosis for her husband, while she had a hysterectomy — which she talked about publicly when she returned to work.

Immigration is among voter's main concerns, along with housing and healthcare. It's fueled outbreaks of violence, albeit from a small minority. In addition to the Dublin riots, there have been arson attacks, as well as protests and clashes with police at accommodation centers for asylum seekers.

But those who want tighter immigration restrictions aren't getting what they want from Sinn Fein. It's left-of-center leanings, established during Ireland's violent struggle for independence from Britain in the early 1900s, set it apart from groups like Germany's AfD or the Freedom Party in the Netherlands.

Ireland doesn't have a single, large far-right party, but some voters appear to be switching to independent politicians and a handful of small parties.

Sinn Fein's problems have been compounded by scandals including a lawmaker who quit over the party's handling of a complaint of harrassment against him, how it dealt with a senator who inappropriately texted a teenager, and controversy surrounding staff who gave job references to a former colleague under investigation for child sex offences.

"It was always a bit of a myth that Sinn Fein's route to the top in the south was going to be this neat linear progress. There's no inevitability about Sinn Fein's growth in the same way there's no inevitability about a united Ireland," Tonge said. "Both may happen one day, but there's nothing inevitable about either."

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