I will wait until a General Election. People think so little of European and Local Elections that are willing to vote Sinn Fein in as a protest vote. Come General Election time, Sinn Fein will poll well until election day and then people will revert back to the main parties and independents as has happened previously. I admit that Sinn Fein are gaining in popularity as the older generation of SF politicians vanish but I don't see them getting into power anytime soon. Certianly not at the next election.
Until the recent campaign and polls I would have agreed with this. Now however the question is who are "the main parties".
Can FF really be considered a main party anymore. Yes it has a nationwide structure but the heart has gone out of it. A large part of its reason for being was power, now that is gone and the prospect of power is gone. Its activists are old and tired.
After the last general election FF could have tacked right or left, but it stayed in the amorphous middle. That is only a tenable position for a large scale party, a party of power. Now it is too late for FF to go either left or right, the ground is occupied.
Labour, well they have a core constituency, public sector, trade union, middle class liberal. They have no hope of attracting a protest vote or the very small true socialist vote. It has no future as a main party.
Anyone can vote for SF.
Protest voters, Paul Murphy is a mouth, Martin Ferris is a protest vote.
Feminists Mary Lou and the two female European candidates. ( I was watching the EU candidates last night Liadh Ni Riada made Phil Prendergast look like a stuffed shirt. And as an aside Simon Harris made Deirdre Clune look clueless.)
People with serious concerns about the direction of the economy, SF's official economic policies may be fantasy but Peirse Doherty comes across as the best informed alternative to the FG/EU line.