Could Conor McGregor become Ireland’s answer to Donald Trump?
Whether the proposal has legs or not, it’s clear the former UFC champion has politics on his mind, sending his fans into a spin after continuous posts on social media over the past few months, hinting at a 2025 Irish presidential bid after taking aim at the nation’s political establishment.
The two-time UFC champion, who is worth an estimated $400 million, called himself the “only logical choice” to lead the country earlier this month.
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“These charlatans in their positions of power would be summoned to answer to the people of Ireland, and I would have it done by day end,” he told his 10.6 million followers on social media platform X.
McGregor said if he became president, he would move to dissolve the lower house of the Irish parliament, known as the Oireachtas.
He also said last year, if he was president, he would hold votes on every issue every week “to make sure” that politicians were properly making decisions on behalf of citizens.
“The people of Ireland deserve the answers they seek. Point blank. This would be my power as president. I know very well. Ireland needs an active president employed wholly by the people of Ireland. It is me. I am the only logical choice,” he wrote.
McGregor’s claims about the powers held by the Irish head of state were labelled “nonsense” by David Kenny, a law professor at Trinity College Dublin, who also branded McGregor “constitutionally illiterate”.
To make it a reality, McGregor would need the signatures of 20 MPs to be on the presidential ballot.
McGregor has not fought in the UFC since 2021 when he suffered a broken leg in the first round against Dustin Poirier.
A planned comeback earlier this year was aborted after another injury.
In a poll for Irish publication, Sunday Independent, the newspaper asked its readers if they would vote for McGregor if he ran for the job.
Of the respondents, just 8 per cent said they would, while 89 per cent rejected the notion.
McGregor’s supposed plan to enter politics was given the thumbs up from billionaire Elon Musk who wrote “awesome” on one of the posts.
Media in the country has downplayed the possibility but there have been some who have championed such an approach, likening it to Donald Trump and his rise to power in the US.
“Ireland does not have a Marine Le Pen, a Giorgia Meloni, a Geert Wilders. But I think we are looking in the wrong place,” he wrote. “The model that might work in Ireland is American, not European,” the Irish Times′ Fintan O’Toole wrote.
“Could McGregor be our Trump? Absolutely. He occupies a similar space now to the one Trump inhabited before 2015: immensely famous, with a fervent fan base, a persona forged in cod-gladiatorial showbusiness, a genius for personal branding and a toxic narcissism that is the political style of our times.”