New faces: main parties field migrant candidates:IN THE months preceding the local elections of June 2004, a group of researchers studying the response of the Irish political system to immigrants sent a generic, four-line questionnaire to the six major parties. The questions were hardly provocative, inquiring about anti-racism policies and ideas on how to canvass support among ethnic groups.
Getting Into Politics, the paper in which the researchers described their efforts, is a vaguely tragic-comic account of their ever-rising frustration when met with official indifference at every turn.
Neltah Chadamoyo, Bryan Fanning and Fidèle Mutwarasibo recounted how none of the parties responded to that initial letter. When Ms Chadamoyo – a Zimbabwean woman – followed up with a phone call, she felt she was not taken seriously by officials, some of whom dwelt on where she was from and why she came to Ireland. For its part, the Progressive Democrats wrote that its constitution prevented non-EU citizens from becoming members. “Senior officials from a number of parties remarked in telephone conversations that they had never given the issue of immigrant participation in politics any thought,” the authors wrote.
Those officials have probably thought about it since. With June’s local elections drawing closer, political parties are showing more interest than ever in harnessing immigrants’ potential, as both candidates and voters. Between them, four parties – Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Labour and the Greens – have already selected 16 immigrants to stand, while, less conspicuously, the battle for a share of foreign nationals’ votes is being fought with the aid of Polish websites, multilingual leaflets and full-time migrant organisers.
Whatever higher motives the parties may claim, the numbers show that being alive to the immigrant vote also makes strategic sense. The flow of new arrivals may have slowed, but there remain hundreds of thousands of settled immigrants with a right to vote in local polls.
Some of the liveliest contests will be fought in areas with large concentrations of newcomers.
In Mulhuddart in north Dublin, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have each selected a Nigerian candidate in a constituency where another compatriot of theirs intends to stand as an Independent.
Adeola Ogunsina, a petrol station manager in Mulhuddart who joined Fine Gael four years ago, says he was drawn to the party’s support of enterprise and small businesses. And like many other immigrant candidates, he got involved through contact with other members, in his case the local TD Leo Varadkar.
“If you’re doing your best and contributing positively to the society, you feel you have to come out and show people that there are some of us who have come to make Ireland home, who are contributing daily to the society,” he says.
One of his priorities is childcare. “We need to make it easier for women to make the decision to go to work, rather than saying, if you stay at home you don’t get paid and if you work, you get punished with a heavy childcare bill.”
Among his four Fianna Fáil rivals will be Idowu Sulyman Olafimihan, who lives in nearby Clonee and runs his own security company. Mr Olafimihan got involved with the party four years ago – drawn, he says, by admiration for its handling of immigration and its commitment to human rights. “Having studied the political terrain, of most interest to me was the Fianna Fáil party,” he adds.
Like Mr Ogunsina, he cites anti-social behaviour as a major concern in the locality, and feels he could further the process of social integration in one of the fastest-growing parts of the country.
In Limerick, Labour’s Elena Secas – a former journalist from Moldova – chose her party because of its core values and out of high regard for local TD Jan O’Sullivan, for whom she canvassed at the last general election. “I found it very enjoyable and interesting. It’s a very good way to meet people – to hear what they think and how they feel about what’s going on in the country,” she says.
Ms Secas prefers not to dwell on her background, arguing that voters will look for “a candidate who can deliver”, irrespective of nationality.
Anna Banko, a 29-year-old Pole who owns a nail salon in Limerick city and is standing for Fianna Fáil, shares this view.
While reluctant to be cast as a Polish candidate, she feels her election could be of use in pushing other newcomers out of the roles many feel are prescribed for them. “They should understand that Ireland is not just a place where they can work and make money,” she said.
Inevitably, such discussions turn again and again to the “Obama effect”. Without labouring the point, says Issah Huseini of the New Communities Partnership, there was an undeniable resonance in last week’s events in Washington for many in Ireland. “There would be minorities who believe they are meant to be at the bottom of the ladder . . . but Obama’s election sends a very strong message that ethnic minorities are capable of reaching the highest point of achievement, given a level playing field.”
