Before tackling the reasons why Independents choose to run, the category of party dissidents needs to be examined. One of the major reasons why Independents have not been the subject of comparative research is because the few successful Independents in other political systems tend to be defectors from parties, who are not seen as ‘pure’ Independents in the literature (Costar and Curtin 2004: 13). If it is the case that Independents are running simply because they failed to acquire a party nomination, it would lessen the value of a study on the significance of non-party politics.
Because the ultimate choice of candidature rests with a party, rather than with the aspirant individual, there are often many cases of disgruntled party members who sought, but failed to acquire, a nomination from their party. There are also instances of former party incumbents who have been expelled or resigned from their party, usually for either a misdemeanour, or a disagreement with the direction of the party’s agenda. Because a party candidacy is out of
the question for such politicians, if they really desire office, then running as an Independent is their next best rational step.57
This has proven to be the case for former party MPs across many political jurisdictions, with examples occurring in the UK, US, Australia, France, and Canada, to name but a few.58 For such MPs, being consigned to the Independent benches is comparable to a term in exile, since it is not a position they wish to occupy, a sentiment usually expressed via their disenchantment at the powerlessness of their position. For example, soon after James Dillon was forced to resign from Fine Gael to become an Independent in 1942, he declared, ‘I am a party man and I make no concealment of the fact that it irks me to be outside party. I think Independent deputies in a deliberative assembly can do very little good’ (Manning 2000: 184). Noel Browne, who joined the Independent ranks in 1951 after resigning as Minister for Health, expressed similar sentiment, ‘It was clear that an Independent was helpless to make the fundamental changes in state policies needed in the Republic’ (Browne 1987: 221), while John O’Connell, who ran as an Independent after failing to secure a Labour Party nomination (despite being a TD for 16 years), recalls that ‘as an Independent I had no chance in hell of making (those) ideas reality. If I was to change anything, I had to join a political party’ (O’Connell 1989: 164).
These TDs were not Independent by choice, and it was no surprise that they all rejoined parties shortly after becoming Independent. If all Independents in Ireland were simply unselected party nominees, this would lessen the interest of the topic for a number of reasons. First, running as an Independent could be interpreted as a rational decision for such candidates. Second, how genuinely ‘independent’ are such candidates? Third, it would mean a one-line answer could be given to the question posed by this chapter: Independents run simply
57 Unless, of course, they join another party or form their own new one. However, the latter is not a very common occurrence, with the most recent example of the latter in Irish politics being Des O’Malley, who founded the Progressive Democrats in 1985 after he was expelled from Fianna Fáil.
58
A comparable case of interest occurs in Japan. There, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), because of stiff intra-party competition and a fear of unselected candidates running as Independents, sometimes does not select official candidates for a constituency. Those who desire the nomination can run as an Independent LDP candidate, with those who win a seat acquiring the nomination post-hoc to the election (for more details see Reed 2003).
because they failed to secure a party nomination. These candidates might certainly warrant a study, but not because of their independent status.
In light of this, one of the more important questions in the survey was therefore whether Independent candidates had sought a nomination from a party in 2004, or if they were previously members of a party. Of the 179 respondents, only 16 Independents said they had sought such a nomination (see table 4.4), which means that over 90 percent are genuine Independents who ran for reasons other than a failure to secure a party nomination.
Table 4.4. Political party from which Independents sought nomination in 200459 Party N % Fianna Fáil 7 3.9 Fine Gael 7 3.9 Labour 2 1.1 Green 1 0.6 None 162 90.5 Total 179 100
Source: The data for this table, and for all tables and figures from this point on (unless otherwise stated), are from the 2004 candidate survey.
An interesting finding is that almost half of Independents (48 percent) said they used to be members of a party. However, since some of these candidates had left their respective parties as far back as 1970,60 it would be inaccurate to include them in the same category as those who left a party just prior to the 2004 elections. Therefore, table 4.5, which contains details of prior party affiliations of Independents, refers only to those candidates who left a party since 1994 (ten years prior to the local election) – an ample period of time for the effects of prior party affiliation to lapse. Even then, we are left with a considerable number of party dissidents, comprising over one-third of Independents.
59 The total sums to 17, because one candidate said he sought a nomination from both Fine Gael
and Labour. 60
This group consists primarily of those who left Fianna Fáil at the time of the Arms Crisis, over a clash of ideologies regarding party policy towards Northern Ireland.
Table 4.5. Previous Party Membership of Independents61 Party N % Fianna Fáil 30 16.8 Fine Gael 19 10.6 Labour 10 5.6 Green 1 0.6 PDs 1 0.6 Sinn Féin 5 2.8 Others 3 1.7 None 112 62.6 Total 179 100
Having established for the most part that Independents are not simply failed party candidates, the rest of the chapter can be devoted to comprehending why they run for office.