Green Party leadership contest is far from settled as history shows party members can be unpredictable
There will be no marathon count when the Green Party holds its leadership election on Monday. The votes of its estimated 4,000 members, spread through Ireland and Northern Ireland, will be cast electronically. Once the poll closes, the outcome will be known within minutes.
On that basis, even seasoned Green politicians and officials have been reluctant to provide any predictions or guesstimates. There are no tallies, no opinion polls, only the flimsiest of straws in the wind.
On paper, Roderic O’Gorman is the favourite as he is a senior Minister and has held prominent positions in the party going back 25 years. He has also proven himself to be a resilient politician as he has grappled with refugee and asylum seeker numbers that were sometimes overwhelming.
However, history teaches us that Green members can be unpredictable.
The 2020 leadership election took place after the party secured a record number of Dáil seats and members voted to go into Government. However, despite that ‘gaisce’, party leader Eamon Ryan only survived the challenge of deputy leader Catherine Martin by less than 50 votes out of the almost 2,000 cast. He was also, incidentally, backed by almost every senior figure in the party at the time.
That is why few Green Party people have ruled out Pippa Hackett. She has brought a novel argument to the leadership debate that might have traction with its membership outside Dublin.
Her pitch is that the party has had three male and Dublin-based leaders but needs to extend its appeal by having a rural-based leader who can relate to farmers and to people living in the countryside and urban areas outside the capital.
“Out of touch, preachy, judgmental, Dublin-centric, disconnected. These are some of the words that I have heard repeatedly in recent months about the Green Party. And these are not the words from right- or left-wing extremists. These are the words from ordinary, everyday people across this country,” she told the party’s final hustings last weekend.
“Despite the excellent characteristics and commitment from the candidates up and down the country, many people couldn’t see beyond the logo and the name, and so many of our election candidates didn’t stand a chance.”
[ Should the Green Party enter an alliance with other like-minded parties? Roderic O’Gorman and Pippa Hackett debate ]
One disadvantage for Hackett is that she is not a senior Minister, even though she does sit in Cabinet. Another is that she is a senator rather than a TD. The only other party which has been led from the Seanad was the Progressive Democrats and that was in its dying days. Besides, it will be a big ask for her to win a seat in Offaly, which to some is the antithesis of a Green stronghold.
O’Gorman has said he wants the party to extend its policy base to areas outside the traditional Green Party core of the environment and climate change. He says he can do that without deserting the party’s image as being environment first.
There is a separate poll for the deputy leader position with three TDs contesting the vacancy – Ossian Smyth, Neasa Hourigan and Senator Róisín Garvey.
Once the poll closes, the results will be announced, at about 11.15am, in Bewley’s Cafe on Grafton Street in Dublin.
- Sign up for push alerts and have the best news, analysis and comment delivered directly to your phone
- Join The Irish Times on WhatsApp and stay up to date
- Listen to our Inside Politics podcast for the best political chat and analysis
