AFTER A MONTH of a lacklustre campaign largely consisting of trawling and retrawling, sometimes over-intrusively, through candidates’ pasts, and a parade of statements and slogans of mind-numbing inanity and vacuity, the public, it would seem, is barely engaged in this election.
What we are electing after all, and we should not minimise the responsibility, is our head of State, as the Constitution puts it “who shall take precedence over all other persons in the State”, head of the Army, a guardian of constitutional propriety, a voice for the nation on the world stage, a healing voice at home for a sense of oneness, and champion of the marginalised.
The Constitution, and practice, confer on the president little – and then largely, formally – by way of legal authority. But the office is invested with important “soft authority”, not least since the transformative presidency of Mary Robinson. (Indeed, both of the previous incumbents will be hard acts to follow). The holder acquires a moral authority by virtue of their mandate, a right to be heard and to set agendas, as Robinson did, for example, with the wake-up call of her groundbreaking 1992 Somalia mission. Mary McAleese’s Northern diplomacy effectively leveraged what President Theodore Roosevelt called in the US context the “bully pulpit” of the presidency (“bully” in the archaic sense of “wonderful”).
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What we want in a president is a demonstrated combination of vision, constitutional savvy, eloquence, a sensitivity to the pulse of our people, political courage and judgment. And, beyond that, someone who will be perceived abroad as expressing in their person fundamental truths about who we are and what we aspire to as a state on the cusp of 2012 – modern, socially progressive and inclusive, dynamic, free-trading economically, artistically cutting-edge, internationalist in outlook, European. There were high hopes for this country when it achieved independence and freedom and Ireland now wants to be seen as a state that has put behind it what some see as a history of narrow, violent nationalism and conservative, authoritarian Catholicism.It’s a lot to ask. And, in truth, the field can only consist of mere, flawed mortals. But that’s the yardstick. The campaign has rightly asked searching questions, as is to be expected of all job interviews. It’s been a bruising process, but has revealed much about both qualifications and, in their responses, their modus operandi, not least their honesty or tendency to prevaricate.
We have the right to ask candidates about their full CV, and not just the parts they wish to highlight, Martin McGuinness’s complaint that his IRA years should be overlooked simply does not wash, and his continued implausible insistence on non-involvement after 1974 raises serious credibility issues. His espousal now of exclusively peaceful means is commendable, but voters “down here” remain to be convinced that Brand McGuinness, with all its old baggage, could really be the face of their Ireland on the international stage.
Brand Dana is also problematic. Her conservative Catholic and eurosceptic message is most certainly out of step with the majority. But it has been a courageous and vigorous campaign, despite the self-inflicted wound of the pre-emptive denial of charges against her brother.
David Norris has brought to his campaign the energy, charm, and mad eloquence which marked his campaigning over the years, but while voters may just have been willing to give him a pass on his clemency letter, they have been bewildered by his return to the race after withdrawal, with many feeling that the episode reflects on his judgment. A veteran politician, his claim that his election would be of “the first person from outside the political party system” is something of sleight of hand to capitalise on an anti-politician mood .
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Seán Gallagher, trading on a business career that may not be as successful as he would have us believe, has his own smoke and mirrors trick, deployed to the same end. "Fianna Fáil? Qui, moi?" The party's dormant support base is certainly not convinced by his protestations and has flocked to his side, but for many others he is the anti-politics candidate. His attempt, however, to transform the presidency into a ministry for jobs is not convincing.
Mary Davis has sought, as Adi Roche did unsuccessfully before, to broker her accomplished and highly praiseworthy career of service to the community, most notably the Special Olympics, into a political career. But she seems to lack vision and, though highly respected, yet has failed to engage the public.
The two professional politicians, Gay Mitchell and Michael D Higgins, have both had to battle uphill, the latter more successfully, to counter that climate. Mitchell, whose political record of work in Dublin and Brussels, in a just world might mark him out as the best qualified candidate in purely political terms, has simply failed to capture the imagination from the start. Higgins also brings much political experience and nous, and, while assuming with enthusiasm the mantle of lead Coalition candidate, has nevertheless successfully projected an image of a critical and even visionary outsider. And as David Farrell argues on another page he “manages more skilfully than most of the other candidates to appear to promise certain outcomes that are formally outside the remit of the presidency while at the same time staying ‘on message’ about the true role of the president.” An impressive and plausible act.
What this election is not about is a reward for years of diligent public/political service. Nor is it a vote of approval for charitable or community work, nor for work, however valiant, in “peacebuilding”, nor a reward for a lifetime of campaigning for righteous causes.