How this Irish American would reform Irish politics

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Leinster House.

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Throughout 2010, and up until this past February’s general election, a number of wide-ranging proposals to reform Irish politics and the political system were mooted.  The abolition of Seanad Éireann (Ireland’s comparatively weak “upper house” of parliament), a reduction in the number of TDs (members of Dáil Éireann, the lower house of Irish parliament), a tightening of the rules for claiming expenses, a gender quota system to increase the number of female candidates and office holders were among them.  Interesting ideas all, but what’s been said and what the current government might ultimately do in response do not address what I consider a more profound systemic deficiency in Ireland.

That is the power balance between the individual politician and the political party.  It is grossly out of whack.  It should be a fundamental tenet of democracy that a candidate for political office, once elected, will remain true to herself and to those who placed their trust in her.  It is far more likely, however, that the elected representative will blindly follow the dictates of her political party.

TDs are often criticized for engaging in clinetelist politics in service of their constituents, but in their defense, that is their only opportunity to act as individual public servants, not simply as party apparatchiks.  Surprisingly to me, this issue of balance is seldom addressed, though prominent columnist and broadcaster Vincent Brown does vent at times about the power of the party whip.

The consideration of a question once posed to me at a university debate – in what seemed to be headier times for the United States after President Obama’s election – crystallizes the magnitude of this problem: “Could there be an Irish Obama?”  The answer, simply stated, is no.

First off, if the Illinois Democratic Party chose its nominees for office in the same fashion as an Irish political party, Barack Obama never would have been elected to the United States Senate.  A black, reform-minded liberal from Chicago would almost certainly have been adjudged too risky a proposition.  A moderate Democrat from the “Chicago machine” or from the conservative southern part of the state would have been considered a more viable candidate and thus ordained the nominee by the party insiders who control the nomination process in Ireland.  But an open nomination process in Illinois allowed Obama to take his message to the wider electorate and he cruised to victories in the Democratic primary and general election.

Then in office, Senator Obama would have been expected to keep his head down and toe the party line in his first term if he were a member of an Irish political party.  He didn’t and, risking the wrath of many senior Democrats in the Senate, criticized the bipartisan majority that gave President George W. Bush unbridled authority to wage wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  His vote defined his presidential candidacy and swayed many on the left wing of his party to support him instead of the presumptive nominee, Hillary Clinton.  Whether one agrees with now-President Barack Obama’s politics or approach to governing, the foregoing are facts.

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