Presidential Election 2025

A strawman upon a strawman! I didn't say abstaining would have solved the problem which FF/FG/SF created last year.

But now that you raise the point, I think as a general principle it would be a good thing in future if any party whose Oireachtas members have nominated a candidate agreed not to block reasonable candidates at Council level i.e. not to foreclose the Council's rare constitutional prerogative. This should apply even if the parties' nomination processes aren't as messed-up as last year (which is the point I was discussing)

There was a lot of talk after the election about the need to reform the nomination process but there is no appetite for this debate among the FF/FG/SF leaderships. I expect we may have even less choice next time i.e. if FF/FG have no stomach to challenge CC.

Council do not elect the President - they can act as gatekeepers but last year they simply shut the door on all-comers. This is a national issue where they do not have a mandate (likewise for Senate elections but that's another can of worms). Three more Councils would need to agree before anyone gets on the ballot. And I did say "reasonable candidate" - of course the main parties could block any headbanger who had a couple of pals on the Council.

It would be much better if the main parties got their acts together and put on the ballot candidates who had demonstrated extraordinary competence in relevant areas e.g. constitutional law, international affairs, and had given outstanding service to this country. Is that dream dead now?

Somehow FF's fiasco has given cover to FG and SF, neither of which published a review of their campaigns (I know, I know… SF going public on their internal processes🤣)

She showed a remarkable gift for campaigning, her timing was perfect and the media loved her. In this game, that’s far more important than job-related competence, merit, stature or experience. Once SF backed her, I doubt even Mairéad could have beaten her. No FF’er stood a chance.

She’s canny enough to bide her time on Trump/Iraq. All those who nominated her are harassing the Taoiseach daily with a burning question- Is this war illegal? Any chance they might ask the woman they nominated to be Supreme Commander of our Defence Forces?

You’re confused. The councillors are gatekeepers, not electors (unlike the Seanad, let’s not go there!). And this has nothing to do with their local mandate (although the candidates promise to visit every school, GAA club and parish hall in the county).

Even if a council decided to nominate on the basis of a couple of independent councillors, the candidate would still need three more Councils and, as I said, the main parties should only abstain when the candidate is “reasonable” (let them vote against Conor McGregor til the cows come home!).

What do I mean by reasonable? Let the main parties decide but they must defend that decision in public. See how reasonable I can be!

What would be wrong with a reasonable candidate getting on the ballot based on nominations from four councils even if a large majority of Councillors abstained?

You think local Councillors have a mandate on this?? Wrong.

Collectively, they have a constitutional prerogative which, let's hope, they exercise in the national interest though experience tells us otherwise. They shouldn't hide behind the far-fetched notion that their voters mandated them on this matter. Still less, that their voters mandated them to block all other candidates (at least when their Party HQ is running scared).

You think it "undemocratic" that Councillors shouldn't block reasonable candidates but you are OK with their Party HQ removing their choice entirely? The poison of party and faction runs very deep in Ireland.

A strawman is still a strawman even if you call it "an extrapolation". You may mean "reductio ad absurdum" but the absurdity is in your own head. As I said, there is no obligation on anyone to nominate a candidate. My objection is to the parties which failed miserably to organise their nomination processes and then blocked reasonable candidates from getting on the ballot.

My proposal is that these parties would allow their Councillors at least to abstain when reasonable candidates seek their Council's nomination. And yes, a very small number of independent Councillors might swing a nomination. What harm, if the candidate is reasonable and three other Councils also nominate?

There is no sense in conjuring up impossible visions of overflowing ballot papers. Let me repeat - there is no obligation on anyone to nominate a candidate. CC may well nominate herself in 2032, despite her one-term promise. Mary Robinson is the only other person who could self-nominate and she won't of course. Michael D used up his opportunity when he promised not to.

Mercifully, we have been spared Trumpian nonsense about "stolen elections" but the nomination process was a fiasco. The post-mortem has been all about the Gavin Gaffe but how was Heather foisted on FG and why did SF fail to nominate one of their own after months of deliberation?

RTE predictably missed the real story in the Electoral Commission report - only 7% of voters were satisfied with the choice of candidates. That is an astounding indictment of the nomination process but the main parties are so embarrassed by their failures that they hope we will forget it. So they won't do anything effective to improve the position for 2032. At which stage CC will tell FF/FG that she can spare their blushes by breaking her one-term promise.

I made a simple suggestion to broaden the ballot but Boards is a test-bed for the Dunning-Kruger effect.

The fifth strawman! I never asked anyone to support a competing candidate, not even facetiously.

Iosif Vissarionovich, your understanding of democratic centralism is unmatched. We have dispatched those fools who wanted to be on the ballot paper.