Irish and Dutch: competition from ‘within’

Both in the Netherlands and in Ireland Greens had competition from their own circle. In the Dutch elections, held yesterday, two parties claimed the label ‘Green’, approved by the European Green Party. In Dublin, today a former Green MEP ran as an independent candidate against a current Green. In both cases the competition occurred quite late in the campaign and came as a surprise.In the Dutch elections, clouded by a massive victory of right wing nationalists, the appearance of De Groenen on the voting lists and fighting for the same Green votes had hardly an impact. GroenLinks is one of Europe’s stronger Green parties and outweighs its tiny competitor by far. And although its’ party leader is so displeased that he considers steps through the European Green Party of which both are founding members, the almost 10.000 votes De Groenen claim to have obtained, didn’t prevent GroenLinks from booking its first positive result since 9-11: three seats, one up from 2004, and 8,9 percent, 1,5 up. 

In Ireland Deirdre de Burca (right) might be less lucky. In today’s elections she may well have be defeated by Patricia McKenna (left), who represented her party in Brussels from 1994 till 2004. McKenna, who led a no-campaign against the Lisbon treaty last year whereas a majority of her party was in favour, has been increasingly critical towards Comhaontas Glas’ government participation. 6 May she decided to quit and run independently because the Irish Greens, she says in an interview, are only ‘propping up the government’ dominated by Fianna Fáil and remain silent whereas criticism towards FF grows.

For De Burca, who had been campaigning from mid-April, McKenna’s participation came as a nasty surprise because McKenna is quite popular: recent polls give her 8 per cent against 6 for De Burca. ‘Patricia has the right to her views’, she says in the interview. But she could have announced her participation in an earlier stage. And by her step she’s betraying all those Greens who have campaigned for her.