Irish presidential election (What’s the point?)

[Young Master Smeet]

Things have taken an interesting turn, the Fianna Fáil candidate, Jim Gavin has dropped out late in the contest:

https://www.rte.ie/news/analysis-and-comment/2025/1006/1536984-presidential-election/

“The root of the spectacular withdrawal was the Irish Independent’s revelation that a tenant in a property Jim Gavin owned 16 years ago did not receive a refund they had sought after an overpayment of rent.”

As some have said, respect for commitment to the grudge.

Gavin will still be on the ballot paper (so it’d be interesting to see how many people vote for him, and if that will effect the result in any way).

[Young Master Smeet]

So Connolly won by a landslide, on a slightly increased turnout.

103K people voted for a candidate who withdrew from the contest.
213K joined a spoilt ballot contest, organise by the far right, ostensibly because the system was ‘rigged’ because their candidate was unable to get nominated by parliamentarians or councils (apparently it is unusual for Fine Gael to whip its councillors to not support an independent, but it is hardly unfair nor unreasonable to expect them to not back an opponent to their party’s candidate – as matter of fact, with the ranking voting system Ireland uses, it wouldn’t matter if there were further candidates, except for media exposure, Steen could not have won). The various left parties, including Sinn Fein

This is useful to us, because it shows how a spoilt ballot campaign can punch through, in this case, reaching 16% in some quarters.

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