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Many
and diverse explanations and analyses have been proffered
to account for the significant drop in numbers of
voters in particular constituencies. With one exception,
Sinn Fein, the local parties have stated, with varying
degrees of satisfaction, that the loss of a sizable
number of voters can be put down to newer, stricter
procedures employed by the electoral authorities.
The new measures, we were informed, allowed for the
overdue ‘burial’ of those thousands of dead
who voted early and often for Sinn Fein in the many
elections since that party decided to dip its snout
into the constitutional trough.
Sinn
Fein, denying the personation slur, voiced anger that
so many of their supporters had been disenfranchised
through bureaucratic red tape and incompetence on
the part of the Electoral Office.
It
would appear that no one has yet to suggest that voter
apathy or antipathy is in any way connected to the
substantial gaps that have appeared in electoral registers
particularly in constituencies with a republican majority.
After
a catalogue of humiliating climb-downs sold to the
base as strategic victories even the most pliant and
faithful Sinn Fein voter must be questioning the political
integrity of the leadership, a leadership that is
too ready to abandon any and all of its erstwhile
progressive principles to reconcile the irreconcilable.
Many people were drawn into our struggle confident
that real, positive change could be brought about
on the basis of these principles. Alas, it seems,
lessons from the past were ignored to gain the illusion
of power.
Sinn
Fein’s unseemly rush to gain respectability with
political and corporate America will continue unchecked
despite the fact that the U.S A. is preparing to visit
even more slaughter upon the already devastated people
of Iraq. Any protest by erstwhile anti-imperialists
should be weighed against the readiness of Sinn Fein
personnel to with those planning, sanctioning and
financing this bloody venture.
Now,
stripped bare of any pretence at radical republicanism
Sinn Fein has become indistinguishable from the constitutional
right-wing mulch that passes for politics at Stormont.
When given the opportunity once more Sinn Fein will,
with relish and energy, administer very bad British
rule in this part of Ireland.
“Twelve
voices were shouting in anger, and they were all
alike. No question, now, what had happened to the
faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked
from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig
to man again but already it was impossible to say
which was which”.
- Animal Farm, George Orwell 1946
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