Sir, – Dr Desmond Fennell (October 31st) faults the multi-party system as an impediment to democracy. Political parties are the natural outcome of like-minded individuals combining their efforts to achieve a shared goal. The obvious faults in our political system, which Dr Fennell points out, are more the results of manipulations generated by successive leadership cohorts which dominated the parties, rather than any inherent flaw in political associations. Greater levels of participation by the general public in the political process and greater control of the process at grassroots levels, are steps which can help ameliorate the existing flaws.
Candidates for local and national offices should be selected by members of cumanns in secret ballot, primary-style elections; officials at party headquarters should be barred from interfering/influencing this nomination process. At local and national levels the party-whip rule and the guillotine procedure should be banned. Elected members of a political party will agree with the party’s general views the vast majority of times; when an elected member feels the need to disagree it should be remembered the individual was elected to represent the people and not the organisation. The guillotine procedure is an affront to the principle of freedom of speech. Use of the procedure implicates its practitioners as those who prefer to control rather than confer.
Democracy is the form, and political parties the function, of representing the aspirations of the people. – Yours, etc,
DAN DONOVAN,
Shandon Street,
Dungarvan,
Co Waterford.