Many in Australia’s republic debate had looked to Ireland’s Mary Robinson as a successful example of having a directly elected President. Here was an independent woman who had huge popular support and who stood for the people of Ireland in a symbolic, rather than political, way. Despite being directly elected she carved out a role of national representation above politics.
Well, events at the weekend show that to be an aberration. Ireland has reverted to the normal pattern of direct presidential election. That pattern is usually a head to head battle between the nominees of the major parties with one or other winning after a few shrapnel candidates dropped out. And that would be the pattern in Australia if we were so foolish as to have a directly elected president.
Mary Robinson was a fluke. At the 1990 election she only managed to get up from being in a position as a token left-wing candidate after the government party’s candidate, a sacked Cabinet Minister, became discredited and unelectable. And even then she only just scraped in with a majority of a few per cent.
She was a wonderful president, but a one-off in an orderly queue of party hacks. She did at least change the major parties’ attitude to nominating presidential candidates. At the weekend’s election there was a refreshing array of fairly independent-minded, career-achieving women candidates. None the less is was still a battle between the nominees of the two major parties and there is no guarantee that next election the major parties will not revert to form and nominate loyal, long-serving political hacks. That’s what would happen in Australia.
With a directly elected president we would never get a Sir William Deane or a Sir Ninian Stephen as President.
That said, the weekend’s election gives some hope for peace in Northern Ireland with the election of Belfast law professor Mary McAleese. She is the first Northern Ireland Catholic nationalist to hold the presidency and has a huge understanding of the issue. Already she has urged a change in the language of conflict.