Ireland elected its 10th president over the weekend, the independent, left-wing candidate, Catherine Connolly. She will be inaugurated next month.
The president in Ireland serves as the head of state, not the head of government. In her role, Ms. Connolly will represent the people and the state, at home and abroad, signing legislation into law, appointing government officials and—should it ever be relevant in a notionally neutral nation—commanding Ireland’s defense forces. It is the longstanding practice that all these activities are taken under government counsel, so the role of an Irish president is very different from the executive power that applies in the United States.
Still, as the defender of the constitution, the president plays an important role, and presidential elections—run every seven years—attract considerable attention in Ireland. This year’s campaign was marked by a series of failed attempts by high-profile individuals to get on the ballot, followed by the downfall of a candidate who had seemed a serious contender.
While Ms. Connolly won the most votes of any candidate in the history of the Republic, the election itself was marked by a low turnout and a campaign to spoil votes, raising questions about whether Ireland is as stable a democracy as most presume.
Barriers to entry
The Irish Constitution lays out the process by which a person can qualify for candidacy in the election. New candidates can be nominated either by 20 members of Ireland’s bicameral parliament or endorsed by four county councils. One must be an Irish citizen (though candidates can be born abroad), and over 35 years of age.
These criteria are in place to ensure that sheer prominence would not automatically get one on the ballot (though there has been a long-running effort to get a turkey radio character, not a political turkey, elected).
That was tested earlier this year as both the star of “Riverdance,” Michael Flatley, and the U.F.C. fighter, Conor McGregor, expressed interest in running for the job. Considering Mr. McGregor’s past legal difficulties, it was understandable that very few people took his campaign seriously. The high-stepping Mr. Flatley’s campaign never really got off the ground. Celebrity alone clearly does not suffice for getting on the ballot.
Other quasi-celebrities tried to run but failed at the first hurdle, including the meteorologist Joanna Donnelly and the entrepreneur Gareth Sheridan. A prominent barrister, famous for her articulate defense of conservative social positions, Maria Steen, came closest to getting on the ballot this year. That effort failed in the final hour, and Ms. Steen appeared before the news media wearing a handbag that cost as much as a second-hand car while claiming to be a voice that could speak “for a kind of righteous anger that people are entitled to express.”
Those left standing
At the end of these preliminary shenanigans, three candidates actually made it on to the ballot papers. The ruling political parties, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, both made nominations. Fine Gael endorsed an experienced politician well known to people in the counties that border Northern Ireland, Heather Humphreys.
Ms. Humphreys had a strong base of support from voters in rural Ireland and, as a Protestant whose father had been in the anti-Catholic organization the Orange Order, could be pitched as a canny choice for those who wanted to emphasize how Ireland had moved on from the Troubles, with previously bitterly opposed communities finding ways to live in peace with each other.
Fianna Fáil went in a totally different direction. It selected Jim Gavin, a veteran of the Irish Air Corps who had served on peacekeeping duties abroad before winning multiple All-Ireland titles in the national sport, Gaelic Football, both as a player and a manager. Mr. Gavin occupied senior positions in both the Irish aviation industry and a major project of urban renewal in the north inner city of Dublin.
Fianna Fáil leaders no doubt hoped that he would have huge appeal in the capital city, where the Irish population is concentrated, and broad support among people across the country who could appreciate his diverse resumé, his experience in high-level organizational roles and his lack of a political experience—these days seen as a positive.
Ms. Connolly was the third candidate. Initially perceived as an underdog, she was at the same time a respected but not especially prominent independent parliamentarian from Galway, in the west of Ireland. She had no backing from a major Irish party, but a coalition of all the smaller left-wing parties formed around her. With their support, and the mistakes made by others, she soon gained momentum.
A final withdrawal
That momentum appeared unassailable when Mr. Gavin’s candidacy fell apart in the most absurd of all the failures in this year’s election. The unfortunate candidate had invested in property in the years leading up to the global financial crash and in the aftermath, in the midst of a vicious recession, a tenant ended up overpaying several months-worth of rent due to a banking error. Because the tenancy was not officially registered, the tenant had no recourse to have the money paid back, even after sending solicitor’s letters and contacting Mr. Gavin directly.
Sixteen years later, that tenant is the deputy editor of one of the nation’s bestselling newspapers and the co-host of one of the country’s top podcasts. His revenge was a long time coming but perhaps all the sweeter when it came with astonishing force as the campaign neared its crescendo. Ireland is suffering through a deep housing crisis, with many younger people trapped in a perpetual cycle of renting while landlords pile up their profits. One could hardly imagine a worse scandal in terms of crimping one’s electability. In fairness to Mr. Gavin, he clearly understood the ramifications of his previous indifference to the plight of his former tenant. He made good on the overpayments and withdrew from the race.
Spoiled and soiled
But because the ballot papers for the election had already been printed, Mr. Gavin’s name was still on offer to voters at the booth. He ended up winning over 7 percent of the vote, which may in part be down to voter error—Ireland famously avoids electronic voting machines and uses an intricate system called Proportional Representation by Single Transferrable Vote, which is believed to better account for the complexity of a voter’s intention—but is more likely a reflection of deep voter dissatisfaction.
When Mr. McGregor’s entirely unrealistic pitch failed, no less a figure than Elon Musk intervened to suggest that there was a conspiracy afoot to protect the status quo. That this claim had no basis in fact did not mean it had no effect among some of the electorate. When the pro-life candidate, Maria Steen, failed to get on the ballot in part because of apparent stonewalling by an establishment figure, there was a growing sense that the political class in Ireland only wanted candidates endorsed by the major parties to run.
In the run-up to the vote, a campaign of strategic vote-spoiling to express popular displeasure was proposed. Supporters of the effort claimed that by deliberately voiding ballots, voters could expose the election as undemocratic because of the exclusion of celebrity and populist candidates.
Like other nations, Ireland’s political culture is now deeply shaped by social media, which can often sever arguments from the facts on the ground. This time there were indeed about 10 times more spoiled votes than in other recent elections. Many vote-spoilers were inspired by far-right figures proudly posting images of their defaced ballots on social media.
But it remains difficult to take seriously the charge that failing to secure the required nominations or votes represents a democratic flaw. It is, in fact, the ordinary operation of the proportional system. There were seven candidates selected in 2011 and six in 2018.
The need for democratic renewal
Edmond Grace, S.J., is based at the Jesuit St. Francis Xavier church in Dublin’s northeast inner city. He believes the various controversies surrounding this year’s presidential contest suggest that Irish political culture is facing a real challenge. He remembers how a book he wrote in 2007 was published with a preface written collaboratively by the leaders of every major political party. That such cohesion could be shared about democratic values is hard to fathom from today’s cultural perspective.
What those politicians cooperatively produced now seems prophetic. “The bureaucratic complexity of the modern State,” they wrote, “has become a barrier between political leaders and citizens.”
Almost a generation ago, political leaders in Ireland could already sense the widening gap between the complex, sometimes opaque workings of the state and the everyday experience of citizens. Irish politics had long been intimate and personal—built on local networks of parish halls, community meetings and direct contact with one’s T.D. (parliamentary representative).
But Irish governing grew more centralized and technocratic while decision-making became less visible and more procedural. For many voters, it now feels as though politics happens somewhere else, conducted in a language of regulations, committees and consultations that can baffle the average person. That alienation has deepened the sense that democracy is something managed rather than lived.
The dramatic size of her victory and the fact that it was facilitated by a coalition of five different parties suggest that Ms. Connolly has a strong mandate for the years ahead. She is particularly well-placed to oppose the forces that spin procedure into conspiracy and demonize their neighbors. All the same, she does step into a precarious position.
The negativity of the campaign produced from a number of corners underlines, for Father Grace, what has been lost. “There was a time when political parties were mass movements and they were the voice of the people,” he said.
He describes a period when Irish parties had natural constituencies so that Labour connected with the trade union movement, Fianna Fáil pitched itself as the party for the ordinary person and Fine Gael drew a native support from business leaders and the professional classes.
The social infrastructure that made those connections possible has eroded. Today, the rate of official membership of parties is tiny, and decision-making can become disconnected from wider opinion (as evidenced by failed referendums last year). The historic parties may still dominate the government, but few voters now feel strongly that they belong to them, Father Grace said.
Ms. Connolly’s strong moral vision for the presidency seems to have recaptured some of that connection to popular sensibilities. It seems to have particularly resonated with younger people. But if the larger political parties do not find a way to rediscover their ability to connect with the people and deliver meaningfully on material issues like housing, there is a sense that eventually an articulate and able opponent of the status quo will arrive on the scene—an Irish-style populist—and Ireland may face a serious democratic crisis.
Addressing the democratic deficits
The Irish presidency was designed to be a safeguarding institution. It is protected somewhat from the cut and thrust of political dispute and exercises its power more through gravitas rather than executive heft. Yet the difficulty of simply finding credible people to stand for the office suggests something larger is warping in Irish life—the civic imagination has thinned. Ireland is not suffering from a populist wave so much as from a quiet exhaustion of democratic possibility.
Father Grace suggests a solution will be found through more deliberative forms of politics; call it a synodal process of Irish politics. The development of forums where ordinary people can meet and discuss and debate with their neighbors about the things that matter would be a bold reform but also a renewal of the first principles that underwrote the constitution—the idea that democracy depends on conversation, not coronation.
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