Presidential Election 2025

Barry Andrews says he won't run and he explains why in the Indo.

He doesn't mention the basic reason - any FF candidate is on a hiding to nothing - which is why FF faces a crisis. But he does make a key point that I have been making here, in less diplomatic terms, for the past six months i.e. that Michael D.

has been afforded arguably a large degree of latitude by the elected governments of the day, who have taken a flexible approach to his criticism of government policy. His approach might be popular at times, and some of his pointed statements I would personally agree with, but the question remains whether such statements should come from that office? Such an approach might become problematic, in hindsight, if a president of a more extreme stripe is elected.

Or, to put it bluntly, we could have a constitutional crisis if the next President takes Michael D's approach but without his keen sense of the public mood i.e. if he lambastes the Government willy-nilly and runs a separate foreign policy. On the latter point, Barry Andrews notes that

Ireland will hold the presidency of the EU Council for six months from July 1, 2026, and the President must, in my view, reflect a national ambition to be at the heart of the European project.

Or, to put that bluntly, no more swipes at NATO from the Aras.

Andrews is also correct to say that the next President should capture the public mood as the previous incumbents did.

In 1990, Robinson perfectly reflected the changing attitudes in Ireland towards equality for women. In 1997, McAleese embodied the hope for peace on the island. President Higgins channelled the public exhaustion with austerity.

But he has no clear idea about the current public mood. I don't believe the Irish people will go for Conor McGregor or his ilk even if they manage to be nominated but I do think people want someone who is above party politics and who embodies some ideal.

https://www.independent.ie/opinion/comment/barry-andrews-what-we-need-from-the-next-president-and-why-i-wont-be-running-for-the-aras/a1075292156.html

No - FG have decided to go solo although FF wanted a joint candidate.

Surprising considering FG's disastrous history with Presidential elections. FG may hope to top the poll on the first count with >15% of the vote if there are a half-dozen Independents but FG haven't learned the lessons of the 2024 elections - i.e. their worst-ever outings partly because they are no longer transfer-friendly (nor are the other two large parties, weird eh?). I can see the leading Independent overtaking the FG candidate in the later counts. I don't see a single Left candidate emerging although Ivana is working overtime to make that happen.

The mould is broken alright but the Constitution hasn’t changed.

The President can only act on the Government’s say-so (with only a couple of minor exceptions). Do we what someone in the Aras berating the Government but acting on their every instruction? Do we want someone writing love letters to dictators from the Aras? Opening a flower show with denunciations of various enemies?

All the candidates, even FG’s, will distance themselves from this unpopular government.

It will end in a crisis that will serve no one except those who wish us ill.

Michael D. behaved very differently in his first term and gave FG/FF no reason not to support his re-election. Castro's death did force him to show his true colors for a brief moment in 2016 but most people misunderstood that as a momentary aberration when it was actually a moment of truth. Once he was re-elected, he systematically abandoned constitutional restraint. FG and FF would not support him now if he could seek a third term.

It's up to the government to accommodate what they want from their president. Not the other way around.

That's garbled but if you mean that the government should accommodate the President, you are repeating the Blueshirts' fantasy that Dev. would become a Mussolini in the Aras.

Read what I wrote and don't be going into instant revisionism. I never suggested there was no debate at the time (or even at the time). Quite the opposite. My point was that

most people misunderstood [the Castro statement] as a momentary aberration when it was actually a moment of truth.

When re-election came around two years later, Michael D. was mighty careful not to mention Castro or Cuba or Iran or any other controversial views. It would be absurd to think he won a mandate for his later carry on e.g. with Iran or European defence.

He has infringed the constitution by challenging government policies and running his own foreign policy. The Constitution makes clear that his powers and prerogatives can only be exercised on the say-so of the Government.

Or perhaps you think the President should be a futile wind-bag up in the Aras, issuing fatuous declarations while rubber-stamping everything the Government puts in front of him and misleading other nations about ireland's foreign policy?

I never suggested Michael D wasn’t re-elected. So was Trump. I say the Irish people were misled into thinking Michael D. would continue to behave as he did in his first term i.e. that the Castro statement was an aberration. You keep dodging the issue.

And he is promising more pontificating before he’s done Bear in mind the very special meaning he attaches to the world word democracy he thinks it include Cuba so that’s what he means by democracy under threat tonight