Election Crisis: 1992 winter election gave way to a Spring Tide

Today is the 25th anniversary of the last winter poll — unless you’re a meteorologist and count the last two general elections, held in February, as winter votes.

On November 25, 1992, a healthy 68.5% of registered voters trundled out to their polling stations and elected another Fianna Fáil government, although it took six weeks of negotiations for a coalition to be formed.

The previous alliance of Albert Reynolds’s Fianna Fáil and Des O’Malley’s Progressive Democrats was replaced by a Fianna Fáil-Labour partnership in January 1993. O’Malley’s comments about shenanigans at the Beef Tribunal were instrumental in the snap election being called, and his party increased its share of Dáil Éireann seats from six to 10.