Time to depoliticise the presidency

By the time you read this, Heather Humphries or Sean Kelly MEP might well be the Fine Gael candidate for the presidency, but so far it has been a very strange presidential race, such as it has been one at all. There is only one candidate at the time of writing who actually has the necessary support either from Oireachtas members or local councils to run, and that is Catherine Connolly, who will run on behalf of various left-wing parties, including People Before Profit, the Social Democrats and Labour.

But a plethora of people have expressed an interest in running. These include Michael Flatley, Conor McGregor, businessmen Declan Ganley, Gareth Sheridan and Peter Casey, plus Nick Delehanty, who has taken part in the most recent general and local elections.

But it will be extremely difficult for any of these individuals to get on the ballot paper because you need either the support of 20 Oireachtas members or four local councils.

 

Candidates

Mairead McGuinness had been the Fine Gael candidate, and early favourite to win the race, but she had to withdraw for health reasons, and we all hope she makes a full recovery.

Humphries, as mentioned, could well be the new Fine Gael candidate, and a poll in the Sunday Independent last weekend had her narrowly in front of Catherine Connolly. Sean Kelly, the MEP and former head of the GAA has expressed an interest in running, and even Enda Kenny has been suggested as a possibility.

Fianna Fail haven’t nominated anyone yet. Bertie Ahern is being floated, but not by Micheal Martin. Another name being suggested is the Northern Ireland academic, Deirdre Heenan, in a possible attempt to repeat the candidacy of Mary McAleese, another academic from the North.

Former Fianna Fail Ministers, Mary Hanafin and Eamon O Cuiv, have expressed an interest in running, but Micheal Martin has not shown any enthusiasm for them yet.

There was brief talk of Tony Holohan, the former Chief Medical Officer, running, but he has decided not to because he thinks it would open his family up to too much abuse.

Like Fianna Fail, Sinn Fein still hasn’t decided what to do. Mary Lou McDonald is being floated as a possibility there, but who knows?

If Fianna Fail does not run someone, it will mean they have not had a candidate in a presidential race since Mary McAleese.

One by one each candidate came under severe attack until only one was left standing”

If Sinn Fein was to run no-one, it would be a strange vote of no-confidence in itself. Maybe in the end they will throw their weight behind Catherine Connolly who ticks quite a few boxes for them.

It is sort of astonishing that so few hats are properly in the ring yet. What’s going on? I think it is that presidential races have become incredibly personally gruelling for those who run in them, even more than in a general election. In a general election do come under scrutiny, but for the most part it is the record of whoever is in government that goes under the microscope, and so the election is less personalised, although it can still become personally abusive, especially on social media.

But in a presidential election you can’t run on a policy platform as such (even though some candidates pretend they can), because the president has little real power. Therefore, the candidates themselves go under the microscope in a very personalised way.

We have seen this in the last two presidential elections in particular, especially in the one that took place in 2011 and elected Michael D Higgins for the first time. One by one each candidate came under severe attack until only one was left standing, namely Higgins, who the media choose not to attack because he is the one they wanted in Aras an Uachtarain.

In the last presidential election, a similar pattern emerged.

This time, a lot of possible candidates look at the likely campaign and think, ‘not for me’. They would not only have to put up with sometimes very personalised scrutiny from the mainstream media, but above all from the Wild West of social media. I’ve been subjected to many personalised and nasty attacks down the years for my stance on various issues, and it is not pleasant.

 

Change

But I think another factor explains how nasty these campaigns have become and that is the way the nature of the office itself has changed. Up to and including the presidency of Paddy Hillery, the presidency was seen as an essentially sleepy role for politicians at the end of their careers. The job of a president was to carry out the ceremonial aspects of the job and to fulfil the constitutional side were needed (for example, submitting the occasional bill to the Supreme Court to run the constitutional rule over it).

But when Mary Robinson was elected to the role in 1990, she decided to turn the office into something more, to make it symbolic of certain aspirations. In her case, she often seemed to use it to audition for a role in the UN, and indeed that is exactly what she did in the end. She left the office a few weeks early in order to become the UN Human Rights Commissioner, another job she left early.

When Mary McAleese became president and served two terms, she pushed things that bit further. A lot of voters now expect the president to be a sort of moral leader to the nation, as bishops were in the past.

I would like a candidate who would tell voters that they want to be president in the style of Paddy Hillery”

But it is Michael D Higgins who has really pushed the boundaries of the role and has made it overtly political. He frequently comments on issues of the day, both domestic and international. He has used the office to push his own ideological agenda.

Now voters wonder what possible future presidents would do with the office. Higgins often used it to criticise ‘neo-liberalism’ (capitalism). Would a Michael McDowell-type president use it to praise capitalism?

I don’t think a president should do either. The office should be above all politics. The job of president is not to be moral or political leader. But the fact that the office has been both ‘moralised’ and politicised means the stakes are now higher in presidential elections and therefore there is now much more heat in them.

I would like a candidate who would tell voters that they want to be president in the style of Paddy Hillery, that is, someone who will carry out their role with a quiet dignity and will not champion controversial causes in order to satisfy one part of the electorate only. If this is what you want to do, then take up another role. The presidency is not for you.