Analysis-Ireland's Sinn Fein faces tough choices to rebuild a path to power

By Padraic Halpin

After a bruising year in which Sinn Fein saw a huge opinion poll lead melt away and its centre-right rivals win a general election, the left-wing Irish nationalists face tough choices to rebuild a realistic path to power.

Unless the party can recapture lost support, it may be forced between two challenging paths, analysts say: try to stitch together and expand a divided left that has never held power, or soften positions to enable a deal with a centre-right rival.

At stake is momentum towards a united Ireland, which no major party apart from Sinn Fein is prioritising in a significant way.

Polls a year ago showed Sinn Fein on course to be by far the largest party at 35%, a result that might have allowed it to either bypass its centre-right rivals, or leave one with little choice but to act as a junior partner.

But by slipping back to 20% in last week's election, it has been left in an effective tie with those parties - Fine Gael and Fianna Fail - who refuse to consider sharing power with the former political wing of the Irish Republican Army. The two are currently in talks to form a government.

"You've got three medium-sized parties and ... if two of them say they rule out going into government with one of them, well then that's basically excluding Sinn Fein from the possibility of government," said Aidan Regan, professor of political economy at University College Dublin.

"It's difficult for them," he said.

LEFT DISUNITY

Since the Nov. 29 election, Sinn Fein has begun talks with smaller left-wing parties, but with around 60 seats of the 88 required for government, the left has no chance of success.

Sinn Fein points to the gradual decline in combined support for the two centre-right parties from 69% in 2007 to 43% in the last two elections as a sign that the left may soon be able to form a government for the first time since Ireland's independence a century ago.

"Our strategy over the next 4-1/2 years will undoubtedly be to provide an alternative where we can have a government without either Fianna Fail or Fine Gael," said Sinn Fein health spokesperson David Cullinane.

"The objective ... is to convince people that actually we can do this," he told Reuters.

One problem, he conceded, is that a future bounce in support for Sinn Fein could come at the expense of left-wing rivals.

And even if they do get the numbers, a deal with the three middle-class centre-left parties - Labour, the Social Democrats and the Green Party - would not be automatic.

"There's a very strongly held view within the Labour Party in particular, and some parts of the Greens as well, that they just don't want to work with Sinn Fein" due to their very different voter bases, said UCD's Regan.

IMMIGRATION WEDGE

In addition to Sinn Fein's IRA history, a recent toughening of policies on immigration has widened the gap with the centre-left.

Anger among parts of Sinn Fein's traditional working-class base at a relatively liberal attitude to immigration was widely blamed for Sinn Fein's disastrous showing in June local council elections, when the party secured just 12% of the vote.

Tougher immigration policies have, however, alienated some younger middle-class voters attracted by Sinn Fein's progressive housing policies, leaving party leader Mary Lou McDonald with a difficult balancing act.

That job would only get harder if she took the advice of other observers and began to prepare for an eventual deal with Fianna Fail, which once counted McDonald as a member and whose opposition to sharing power with Sinn Fein is seen as softer than Fine Gael's.

"Sinn Fein need to start identifying policies and platforms in which they have commonality with Fianna Fail - or the difference isn't so great - that they could hammer out some sort of compromise," said David McCann, politics lecturer at Ulster University.

"If they continue with the kind of left majoritarian strategy, they are stuck, because the left block are no closer to government today than they were before the election."