{"id":438782,"date":"2025-09-20T15:02:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-20T15:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/438782\/"},"modified":"2025-09-20T15:02:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T15:02:09","slug":"sinn-fein-wont-compete-in-irelands-presidential-race-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/438782\/","title":{"rendered":"Sinn F\u00e9in won\u2019t compete in Ireland\u2019s presidential race \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>McDonald said Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s ruling executive had decided they didn\u2019t want to split the anti-establishment vote by running their own candidate in competition with Connolly.<\/p>\n<p>She said Connolly was well placed to challenge the other two candidates in the field: Heather Humphreys of Fine Gael and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/ireland-gaelic-football-legend-jim-gavin-wins-spot-presidential-ballot-fianna-fail\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Jim Gavin of Fianna F\u00e1il<\/a>. Fianna F\u00e1il and Fine Gael have dominated Irish politics for the past century and are the main parties in Ireland\u2019s current center-right government.<\/p>\n<p>McDonald said Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s priority was to deny Fianna F\u00e1il or Fine Gael the presidency, a largely ceremonial post that has no role in government and since 2011 has been held by the opposition left. The incumbent, Michael D. Higgins of the left-wing Labour Party, is constitutionally barred from running for a third seven-year term.<\/p>\n<p>McDonald made the announcement alongside two other key Sinn F\u00e9in figures: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/michelle-oneill-sinn-fein-northern-ireland-protestant-stormont\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Michelle O\u2019Neill, who leads the cross-community government<\/a> in the neighboring U.K. territory of Northern Ireland; and Pearse Doherty, Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s combative finance spokesman and deputy leader in the Irish parliament in Dublin. Doherty had been widely considered the most likely candidate, had Sinn F\u00e9in opted to run.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is a big decision to support a candidate from outside our membership and work with the combined opposition to collectively take on the government \u2014 to give people a clear choice,\u201d McDonald said.<\/p>\n<p>Connolly welcomed Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s support. She declined to confirm whether she had promised McDonald anything in return.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"McDonald said Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s ruling executive had decided they didn\u2019t want to split the anti-establishment vote by running&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":438783,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[748,1442,33,393,474,4884,678,679,837,680,148599,1434,1144,5111,712,23065,16,15,1764,771],"class_list":{"0":"post-438782","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-competition","11":"tag-elections","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-finance","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-irish-politics","17":"tag-israel","18":"tag-mary-lou-mcdonald","19":"tag-michael-d-higgins","20":"tag-michelle-oneill","21":"tag-northern-ireland","22":"tag-parliament","23":"tag-scotland","24":"tag-spectrum","25":"tag-uk","26":"tag-united-kingdom","27":"tag-wales","28":"tag-war"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115237233827979393","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=438782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/438783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}