Nominations closed this week for the Irish presidential election, to be held on October 27. Seven candidates will compete to replace two-term incumbent Mary McAleese in a single preferential ballot.
The president is expected to be above party politics, but three of the seven have a clear party affiliation: Gay Mitchell and Michael Higgins from the parties of the current governing coalition, Fine Gael and Labour respectively, and former IRA leader Martin McGuinness from Sinn Fein. There are also four independents, although one of them, Sean Gallagher, has previously been an adviser to the main opposition party, Fianna Fail, which for the first time has no candidate of its own.
Most international interest in the race has centred on McGuinness and his background in terrorism. It’s certainly a striking reminder of how much Ireland has changed in the past 20 years: McGuinness’s success as a peacemaker in Northern Ireland has meant that his past, while not actually forgotten, can perhaps be discreetly veiled. As he says, “the past is a very, very dark place for everybody”.
For an Australian audience, however, Ireland has a more direct relevance. It provides the most notable example of a Westminster system combined with a directly elected head of state — just the model that the majority of Australian republicans appear to support.
The Irish system, like that in most of Britain’s former colonies, clearly shows its Westminster origins. Executive power resides in the prime minister and cabinet, responsible to parliament; the head of state has largely formal and ceremonial functions, plus some residual “reserve” powers for exceptional situations.
Heads of state in that system usually fall into one of two types: either a hereditary monarch, or a president indirectly chosen by some sort of electoral college (most commonly a joint sitting of parliament, often with a special majority required). In 1999 Australia voted against changing ours from the first to the second — helped by much propaganda against the idea of a “politicians’ republic”, where the president (it was said) would be just another politician chosen by politicians.
The reason for indirect election is usually given as the need to avoid giving the president too much credibility as an independent centre of power, lest it should encourage them to go beyond their ceremonial powers and meddle in politics. Indirect election was therefore pushed here by the Australian Republican Movement, but received only a tepid voter response. Polls consistently show a big popular preference for direct election.
Memories are probably fading, but for a time the opposition to direct elections was fuelled by the experience of Weimar Germany, where the directly elected presidency failed to prevent the rise of Hitler and may even have helped to create instability. Postwar West Germany switched to indirect election as a result — a lesson that was lost on Australia’s monarchists, who effectively told us that indirect election would put us on the road to dictatorship.
The Irish experience, however, demonstrates that direct election need not create problems. Its presidents, who are generally held to have acquitted themselves well, tend to be respected former politicians — in fact, very much the same sort of people who get elected in countries with indirect election. They seem no more prone to scandal or political controversy than leaders in any other country.
Ireland also shows just how direct election can work. Not just anyone gets to run for president — candidates must be nominated either by 20 MPs or by four local councils. (Scaling that to Australia’s figures, it would be the equivalent of about 13 MPs or about 64 councils.) The winner serves a seven-year term, with a maximum of two terms; there is no vice-president, so if a president dies or resigns a fresh election is held.
Our republican debate is currently in limbo, but given the large number of Australians with Irish ancestry, it’s a little strange that the Irish model is not more often referred to. A vigorous, democratic process that nonetheless produces a non-threatening head of state seems to be just the thing we’re looking for. If Ireland can do it, why can’t we?
Excellent article. The Australian Republic Movement effectively stuffed the move to a republic even though the majority of Australian punters wanted a republic. The monarchists just capitalised on the arrogance and incompetence of the ARM campaign. The ARM logic went something like this:
-punters are too stupid to be able to handle a directly elected prez
-only us esteemed members of the parliament can do that
-we will bestow upon them a president we think fit and not let the rabble/masses/people who don’t support liberal or labor, get a look in.
As a result they effectively deemed that Barnaby Joyce, Craig Thompson, Mal Colston, Wilson Tuckey, pick your most underwhelming polly…was fit to decide on a president but not us average punters. No wonder they got flogged in the referendum. It was like watching a slow motion train crash with Mal Turnbull and Eddie McGuire trying to explain to the public why they were too dumb to be trusted with a vote on it. While all this was happening Irish Republic returned some of the finest public figures to the presidents chair by direct election. If you start going down the path of saying people are too stupid to elect their own president where do you stop? Too stupid to elect parliament? Maybe the politicians are too stupid to realise that people actually value democracy and its the pollies that are degrading it. Witness the current low quality of debate on the carbon tax. Here’s a tip. Introduce a direct election model for president based on the Irish model (except minimise the MP nomination rules, don’t forget they’ve got proportional representation over there) and you’d have a republic ( real not a pretend one) tomorrow. But here’s another tip, it ain’t the most important issue luvvies. Get proper action on climate change or we’ll have a shrinking republic to deal with.
I also welcome this piece.
I was never persuaded by the argument that an elected president would reduce the executive’s power. In the unlikely event that this happened it would be good since the executive has too much power. The suggestion that this would somehow compromise the political system was weird since Westminster is based on the separation or division of powers.
Er, this seems to fundamentally misunderstand what makes up a Westminster system.
In a Westminster system, unlike (say) the US system as an example of a more ‘ideally’ separated system, the legislative and executive branches of government are effectively blended together. The executive is made up of the same members of parliament as the legislative, and for the most part having a working majority for the purposes of passing legislation coincides with those same people having executive control.
At one general election the public decides both legislative and executive through a single ballot paper (ignoring the upper house for the purposes of this discussion) electing a single set of representatives – how exactly can Westminster be described as being ‘based on the separation or division of powers’?
However, the role of a president in a republican Australia would only by the barest whisker be defined as being part of executive government – as with the Governor General the president would have basically no real power in the normal day-to-day affairs of government. I would have serious issues with an American style powerful politicized president in Australia, and I think that was the back-of-the-mind fear of those opposed to direct election (as I was). Now, provided the president has no real power except in the truly exceptional cases that the GG might now, I can see direct election as acceptable (if not my preferred option) – and the Irish example as described in this article is a decent one.
I doubt there will be any republican push in Australia for many years to come, if ever. There is no apparent public appetite for it and the conservative side of politics is not going to support a bipartisan push for it. Without bipartisanship the chances of a referendum getting up is zero. The ALP is in no shape to be prosecuting a divisive issue with the public and has no political capital to fight such a fight. Unless it wanted a distraction; at the moment a cynical electorate would see it for what it was – a distraction.