The count is mostly finished in Ireland and the result is in: every party is claiming victory! To figure out who actually won this election, it makes the most sense to look at the party with the biggest share of first preference votes and the most seats in the Dáil: Fianna Fáil. Less than five years ago, it looked like Micheál Martin would go down as the first leader of his party not to be Taoiseach. Then the coalition with Fine Gael suggested Fianna Fáil would be subsumed after five years on the same side. Somehow, the tables have turned.
As I mentioned last week, Fianna Fáil ran a terrible campaign. It failed to inspire anyone to go to the polls. It didn’t lean into snappy policy proposals like the Department of Domestic Affairs. But it did shy away from controversy. In short, the party didn’t win because of anything it did, it won because of what it didn’t do. This is the Silent Strategy. It’s effective but it’s risky in an election in a multi-party system like Ireland. Now that the election is over, though, it’s the strategy Fianna Fáil needs to keep using during government formation talks.
The Silent Strategy in action
The silent strategy is effective when you only have one opponent. If the other guy loses, that means you win. Donald Trump played this effectively during his recent electoral victory in the US. To beat Biden, Trump ultimately let him sink his own campaign. Trump took moderate positions on ideological issues and exhibited his ability to speak and conduct interviews. Meanwhile, Biden played to the extreme left-wing of the Democrats and repeatedly collapsed in public.
When Kamala Harris took over, Trump did the same thing. He played golf while Harris adjusted to the spotlight. As Harris avoided interviews, he packed his schedule with press conferences. These were not memorable events, but they highlighted the gap between the candidates. Ultimately, the slogan that tipped the vote in the swing state of Pennsylvania ran “Kamala Harris is for they/them, Donald Trump is for you” – a knockout punch that brought the common sense vote home in a common sense state.
The key to using this strategy, though, is making sure that when your opponents lose votes, they go to you.
Fianna Fáil’s risky move
This strategy is highly risky in a Proportional Representation system like Ireland. If a party makes a serious mistake, there is no single destination for that vote. No matter how many mistakes your opponent makes, you must fight for their votes. In 2011, Enda Kenny’s Fine Gael benefitted not just from 14 years of corruption and empty wallets under Fianna Fáil, they presented a tangible plan for rebuilding the economy and putting every voter back into a job.
After four years of a Supply & Confidence agreement between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin proposed radical change in government from the two perennial parties. In fact, Sinn Féin was still a small party before the 2020 election. It gained 25% by snapping up the votes Fianna Fáil expected to get from Fine Gael’s decline. The party expected that propping up the minority government for four years would not backfire because there would be nowhere to backfire to.
Obviously, they were wrong.
Avoiding failure, not aiming for success
This time, they benefited from a combination of Sinn Féin’s decline earlier in the year and Fine Gael’s decline during the campaign. The silent strategy helped Fianna Fáil to avoid controversy and become the third party to decline. However, while it led the party to victory, an ambitious strategist would have played the stakes and got 60+ seats, rather than falling just shy of 50.
Now that the election is over, though, it is time for Fianna Fáil to stay in the background, knowing that it is almost guaranteed to lead the next government.
Ensuring a Fianna Fáil Government
As I write this, there are still a handful of seats to play for, but it looks like Fianna Fáil will get about 10 seats more than the other two parties. It would be a serious misstep for Fianna Fáil to expect to be an equal partner in the next government. Since Sinn Féin and Fine Gael will be within one seat of each other, it makes no sense to voluntarily concede anything to them.
Martin needs to keep his own red lines secret and simply open the floor for bids from Harris and McDonald. Highest bidder wins. The silent strategy will force both Fine Gael and Sinn Féin to show all their cards and negotiate against each other. This will drive both sides to the bottom in their respective pitches. Martin can pick whichever hand suits him best. So long as he keeps both sides interested and avoids tempting a rainbow coalition, Micheál Martin will be Taoiseach with a Fianna Fáil-heavy government for five years.
The silent strategy is effective. Fianna Fáil benefited from it in this campaign, albeit accidentally. It was a risk to play it in the election, but it paid off. The mistake at this stage would be to stop using it in the formation talks to come.
