Madam, - There is a growing trend in global commentary to describe certain electoral choices as being "bad for democracy". Monday's Irish Times Editorial followed the same line when it described the current strength of Ireland's two main parties as "not healthy". I find this rather confusing.
An obvious first point is the etymology of the word democracy, derived from the Greek word demos to mean the rule of the people. Since few would challenge the analysis that the recent Irish electoral results reflect the wishes of the voters, it would appear that the purpose of the word was well served. Hence, your must mean "not healthy" from a particular understanding of democracy.
The Editorial qualified its diagnosis with the phrase, "given the need in a strong democracy for real choices". Thus, we can understand your conception of a "healthy" democracy to be one with a number of parties from across the classic political spectrum of left and right. Such a circumstance does not currently exist in Britain, Germany or the United States. These are, it follows, "unhealthy" democracies. On the other hand, France and Italy would appear to suit such a framework. But Italy is a governmental failure, owing to its peculiar geographical/class dynamic, while France suffers from regular bouts of "cohabitation", where little other than obfuscation is achieved. Furthermore, Ireland has never suffered from the kind of anti-government riots or mass strikes which occur regularly in France, largely because we do not have, it must be said, its patchwork ethnic/class makeup.
What I am driving at is that there is no perfect "healthy" democracy. The kind of system of which Monday's Editorial speaks so highly of arises from particular social and historical circumstances. Democracy shapes itself around such realities and what emerges is peculiar, just as the particular forces within each democratic process are peculiar. Judging from places where a real left-right divide exists, such a dichotomy hardly seems desirable. Neither, obviously, is the Italian model of multiple parties and halting governance. We do not have a bitter class divide nor real social disenchantment, hence neither is reflected in our democracy. This is something for which we should be grateful. - Yours, etc,
MICHAEL KEARY, Victoria Terrace, Aberystwyth, Wales.