Editorial Sinn Fein marches on

It might be judged something of an exaggeration to say that a party that commands only 3.5 percent of the vote has thereby achieved a "stunning" victory, as has been claimed for Sinn Fein in the wake of the recent local elections in the Irish republic. However, a closer look at the result will justify the adjective and show that it is no hyperbole.

Sinn Fein in achieving its advance did so at the expense of several major names in Irish politics, overturning leading party favorites, representatives of Fianna Fail Fail dynasties among them. It did something that it has been trying to do without success since the mid-1980s: namely, build a credible party machine in Dublin, one capable of duplicating the kind of advances it made in that decade in Belfast. Back then, the Sinn Fein surge was thought capable of capsizing the Social Democratic and Labor Party. In fact, though initially beaten back, it finally did so in the North’s capital, where it is now the leading nationalist party.

In the South, it proved a harder struggle, with dismal result following dismal result. But with the ending of the armed campaign in 1994, Sinn Fein’s fortunes began to change. It coincided with a growing discontent among the poor in urban and rural areas who seemed to have been left behind as the so-called Celtic Tiger leaped ahead to occupy new economic heights.

Sinn Fein, honed by the years of canvassing in Belfast, has shown that it knows how to tap into that well of poverty and deprivation. And it seems to have done so mainly at the expense of Fianna Fail, showing that it is a solidly nationalist party attuned to social and economic issues.

Fianna Fail has been buffeted by scandal after scandal in recent years, and grown fat and complacent after enjoying decades of power. Though its vote in fact suffered only a slight decline, the success of Sinn Fein should sound a warning, as it did to the SDLP back in the early 1980s.

If one thing has been learned from the advances of Sinn Fein in the North, it is that the party is a disciplined one, well-trained and hungry for success. It is no longer a one-issue outfit, obsessed with the national question and nothing else. But its nationalist credentials are strong enough to make it a viable threat to Fianna Fail in many areas. At the same time, its community-activist politics gives it the sort of appeal that once made the Workers’ Party a threat to the establishment party machines.

The success of the new model Sinn Fein has once more highlighted the political bankruptcy of the "armed wing" of the movement, the IRA. It will undoubtedly strengthen those who have been arguing, sometimes against the odds, for the primacy of politics over armed struggle. Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness and the others who mapped out this new course in the 1980s, in the face of the belligerent skeptics, have now at last begun to see the rewards coming in. No, they have not won a United Ireland, as their critics on the republican side will quickly point out. But those critics do not have a viable alternative to achieving that goal, and can do nothing but resort to methods tried without success for generations. At least Sinn Fein has shown that it can appeal to a popular nationalist sentiment in Ireland and marry it to progressive social policies. By so doing, at least it will ensure that the national question will not slip off the political agenda of the major parties in the South.