A former government minister, a former sports coach and an independent leftwing politician are to contest Ireland’s presidential election.
The three-way race was confirmed on Wednesday when the nomination window closed without any political outsiders getting on the ballot.
Heather Humphreys, a former cabinet minister, will run for the ruling centre-right Fine Gael party. Jim Gavin, who managed Dublin’s Gaelic football team, will represent its centrist coalition partner, Fianna Fáil. Catherine Connolly, an outspoken pro-Palestinian voice, is backed by small leftwing opposition parties as well as Sinn Féin, which declined to field its own candidate.
The election on 24 October will end the 14-year tenure of Michael D Higgins, who has drawn praise and criticism for turning the largely symbolic post into a platform for global issues, notably with regard to Gaza.
Several prominent figures, including Michael Flatley, Bob Geldof and the anti-immigration mixed martial arts fighter Conor McGregor – who was endorsed by Elon Musk – had expressed interest in running but failed to win the backing of four local councils or 20 legislators that was required to get on the ballot.
Gareth Sheridan, a pharma tycoon, and Maria Steen, a social conservative activist, narrowly failed to reach the threshold. “I regret to say it was not enough and that time has now run out,” Steen said on Wednesday. The public’s “hunger for an alternative candidate” would now go unsatisfied, she said.
Several commentators, including liberals opposed to Steen’s views, had expressed hope she would make it on to the ballot to give voters more choice.
The presidency was once a sinecure for establishment grandees but Mary Robinson’s insurgent victory in 1990 ushered in an era of unpredictable campaigns focusing more on candidates’ personalities than party affiliations.
A 14 September opinion poll taken before Sinn Féin endorsed Connolly gave her 17%, behind Gavin on 18%, and Humphreys on 22%. Analysts said most voters in Irish presidential elections paid little attention until the final two weeks of campaigning, around the time of televised debates.
Controversies have already buffeted each candidate. Connolly, 68, has been criticised for meeting Bashar al-Assad supporters during a 2018 trip to Syria and for telling the BBC this week that Hamas was “part of the fabric” of the Palestinian people, a comment that unnerved Labour and the Social Democrats, which are part of the coalition backing her campaign.
Gavin, 54, a political novice parachuted in after successful careers in sport, aviation and the military, has assailed social media companies for allowing what he said were “completely unacceptable” lies and misinformation about him and his family on their platforms. “I’m not going to stand for it and at a broader context society shouldn’t stand for it,” he said.
Humphreys, 62, a Presbyterian from the border county of Monaghan, faced questions over her inability to speak Irish and her family’s historical links with the pro-union Orange Order in Northern Ireland. Humphreys has said she favours Irish unity and supporters said her Protestant heritage could help win over Northern Ireland’s unionists.
