A Different View with Dave O’Connell

It’s a privilege to live in a country where democracy can be seen at work – and an election count is the very essence of that; all human life is there…the euphoria of victory, the devastation of defeat, the tension, permutations, political aspirations. All are laid bare before the public.

On one level, it’s a ringside seat on a real-life soap opera where you can see others put everything on the line as they put their futures into the hands of people who don’t have to offer any explanation as to why they accepted or rejected them for the job.

Everyone who stands for election – from a first-timer fresh out of school to a grizzled veteran who has served three terms in Cabinet – takes up the same space on the ballot, with only alphabetical order determining your higher or lower position on the paper.

On a more fundamental level, this of demonstration of democracy is what makes us great. It’s what makes us different to some oligarchy where the incumbent will be returned with at least 98 per cent of the ‘popular vote’ – or a country where there are no elections at all.

Dare we say, it also makes us better than the United States of America because we vote for local candidates who then collectively decide who should be Taoiseach – or at least a majority of them do. They vote for one person who then rolls out the rest.

For us, it means that almost every member of Government is elected by the people in the first instance, and everyone of them has to stand before the people within five years if they are to continue in public life.

The rare exception to the rule is that discretionary appointments made by the Taoiseach (and by association, the other leaders of the parties who make up a Coalition Government) which would allow for a Senator to take up a Cabinet position without actually standing for election in the first place.

These have been few and far between over the history of the state, but even then, it’s democracy at work. Because the person appointing them is the person nominated by the majority of those elected by the people in the first place.