Who is Ireland's new president?
Catherine Connolly has won the presidential election in Ireland, securing a clear victory over her rival Heather Humphreys from the ruling centre-right Fine Gael party. Connolly ran as an independent candidate but was supported by left-wing parties such as Sinn Féin, Labour, the Social Democrats, People Before Profit, and the Greens. She has made waves with her harsh criticism of Nato, the EU and Israel.
A counter-cultural choice
Irish author Justine McCarthy explains Connolly's success in The Guardian:
“Connolly's election is also counter-cultural in an EU increasingly moving to the right and a climate of racism, anti-feminism and militarism. ... Connolly is the eldest of 14 children. She grew up in a local authority house in Galway. She is anti-war, anti-imperialist, pro-Ireland's reunification and an advocate of disability rights. Like her predecessor, she has been critical of the EU's inertia during Israel's human slaughter in Gaza. ... At 68, she is older than Humphreys but she had stronger appeal for younger voters who latched on to her civic society-style peacenik campaign.”
Provocation personified
Connolly's election will take a toll on Ireland's international relations, predicts Irish lawyer and journalist Liz Walsh in The Spectator:
“She is hostile to the UK, on which we are heavily dependent for security should we find ourselves in a pickle, and hostile to the US, on which much of Ireland’s economy is levied. Her loathing of Israel is deep-seated and long-standing. She accused Nato of warmongering, wrongly accused Germany of Nazi-era military spending. ... The best we can hope for is that she dials back the rhetoric and that, seven years from now, we have hung on to at least a handful of our friends and allies.”
No green light for radical socialism
Connolly must now calm the tensions and focus on reconciliation, the Irish Independent advises:
“What this election assuredly does not mean is that voters are bending towards socialism like dandelions turning to the sun. Many people who would be scornful of Connolly's radical ideology gave her their votes this time to send a message to a political system that had doomed them to such a limited choice. She won as the head of a movement, but now has a duty to represent all the people of Ireland. She has been given a mandate, but the presidency was never designed to be a soapbox or a sniper's nest, no matter how cavalierly past occupants of the Áras may have treated it at times.”