With Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil having confirmed their candidates for the upcoming presidential election, in Heather Humphreys and Jim Gavin respectively, the onus is now on Sinn Féin to back Catherine Connolly in order to ensure neither government party ends up in the Áras.

Fine Gael’s candidate Heather Humphreys, a member of cabinet for a decade right up until the most recent general election, is a representative of the austerity years. She stood by and voted with the government all that time, leaving us with many of the problems facing the Irish working class today. Additionally, she has faced accusations of cronyism. While Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht in 2014, Humphreys appointed a Fine Gael member to the board of the Irish Museum of Modern Arts, qualifying him to stand in a Seanad by-election.

The selection of Jim Gavin, a former Dublin GAA player and manager, by Fianna Fáil is a typically cynical and cowardly move from that party: they are standing a widely-known celebrity candidate whose political views are barely known at all. Thus far, Gavin has described himself as a centrist, which is a favoured cop-out by many “apolitical” political candidates, and as a constitutional republican, a term which could be used to describe anyone from the Social Democratic and Labour Party in the north to Fine Gael. In other words, we know very little about what exactly his presidency might look like. Given who he is standing for, however, we can probably assume that he will not seek to rock the boat of the political establishment.

The candidates offered by the two government parties are everything the presidency should not be: one last go-round on the gravy train for a politician who has made a career out of putting the boot into the Irish working class, and a celebrity candidate who seeks to say as little of substance as possible in order to bring home the bacon for a governing party.

Although they are certainly entitled to run their own candidate, Sinn Féin should seriously consider the political consequences of doing so. It may split the anti-government vote, contributing to a political victory for the government and their anti-worker neoliberal ideology. In the event that they do not run a candidate, however, Sinn Féin ought to feel obliged to back Catherine Connolly. They speak much of left-wing unity, and now would be a good time to put their money where their mouth is.