Irish presidential election, 1990

Irish presidential election, 1990

The Irish presidential election of 1990 was held on 7 November 1990. It was the tenth presidential election to be held in Ireland, and only the fifth to be contested by more than one candidate.

Candidates

Brian Lenihan, Snr

Brian Lenihan, Snr, the Tánaiste and Minister for Defence was chosen by Fianna Fáil as their candidate, though he faced a late challenge for the party nomination from another senior minister, John Wilson, TD. Lenihan was popular and widely seen as humorous and intelligent. He had delivered liberal policy reform (abolished censorship in the 1960s), and he was seen as a near certainty to win the presidency.

Austin Currie

Fine Gael, after trying and failing to get former Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald and former Tánaiste Peter Barry to run, ultimately nominated the former civil rights campaigner and SDLP member Austin Currie. Currie was a respected new TD and former minister in Brian Faulkner's power-sharing executive in Northern Ireland from 1973–1974. Currie had little experience in the politics of the Republic and was widely seen as the party's last choice, nominated only when no-one else was available.

Mary Robinson

The Labour Party let it be known that it would for the first time run a candidate. It chose as its candidate Mary Robinson, SC, a former senator and liberal campaigner. Robinson was a former Reid Professor of Law in the Trinity College, Dublin. She was previously involved in the Campaign for Homosexual Law Reform and the campaign to save Wood Quay.

Campaign

Lenihan entered the race as odds-on favourite; no Fianna Fáil candidate had ever lost a presidential election. However Lenihan was derailed when he confirmed in an on-the-record interview with freelance journalist and academic researcher Jim Duffy that he had been involved in controversial attempts to pressurise the President, Patrick Hillery over a controversial parliamentary dissolution in 1982. When the contrast between his public denials during the campaign and his confirmation during his earlier interview (recorded in May) he was dismissed from the Irish government.

At this point a cabinet colleague, Pádraig Flynn launched a controversial personal attack on Mary Robinson "as a wife and mother", an attack that was itself attacked in response as "disgraceful" on live radio by Michael McDowell, a senior member of the Progressive Democrats, then in coalition with Fianna Fáil and up to that point supporting Lenihan's campaign. Flynn's attack was a fatal blow to Lenihan's campaign, causing many female supporters of Lenihan to vote for Robinson in a gesture of support.

In a shock outcomeFact|date=June 2008, Labour's Mary Robinson beat Austin Currie, forcing Fine Gael's candidate into a humiliating third place. Under Ireland's system of Single Transferable Vote Robinson received over 75% of the transfers when Austin Currie was eliminated, beating Lenihan into second place and becoming the seventh President of Ireland.

Result

Irish Election box begin
title=Irish Presidential Election, 1990
Irish Election box candidate with party link
candidate = Mary Robinson
party = Labour Party (Ireland)
votes = 612,265
percentage = 38.88%
seat = 1
count = 2
Irish Election box candidate with party link
candidate = Brian Lenihan, Snr
party = Fianna Fáil
votes = 694,484
percentage = 44.10%
seat =
count =
Irish Election box candidate with party link
candidate = Austin Currie
party = Fine Gael
votes = 267,902
percentage = 17.01%
seat =
count =

Aftermath

While the role of the presidency in day to day politics is a very limited one the Robinson presidency is regarded by many observers as a watershed in Irish society symbolising the shift away from the conservative ultracatholic male-dominated Ireland which existed up until the end of the 1980s to the more liberal society symbolised by Robinson.

Robinson is generally credited with raising the profile of the office of president which had being considered little more than an honorary figurehead position under her predecessors. Indeed prior to the Robinson presidency it was not unusual to hear commentators advocating the abolition of the office of president (a viewpoint that is almost never advanced nowadays).


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