Do we need to elect a largely powerless president at all?

THE ONGOING race for the presidency has, as I understand it, stirred up some controversy this week. Hitherto more than usually colourful, the competition will, following the unavoidable departure of David Norris, now settle back into its traditional soporific torpor.

Ah, this could be just like the old days. You remember. It used to be like watching a mildly ill-tempered squabble in the TV room of an old-peoples' home. Walking sticks and ear trumpets would be aggressively brandished before, to the surprise of nobody, Grandpa Fianna Fáil achieved the right to watch One Man and His Dograther than Last of the Summer Wine.

Here’s the question nobody’s asking. Why do we bother with a president?

The role of head of state offers near-insurmountable problems for the framers of any modern democracy. Such a figure has to be both elected and “above politics”. This is rather like suggesting that the winner of the men’s singles at Wimbledon should be above tennis.

The very act of entering an election is a political act. Even voting for the least conspicuously aligned candidate constitutes a statement about your own political beliefs; you’re supporting the No-Party Party.

Mary Robinson was accredited with depoliticising the position. But, just by being who she was – a leftish academic with moderately liberal social views – she edged certain ideologies into the office.

Yet when the candidate achieves what is supposedly the State’s loftiest title, he or she is still largely powerless. The controversies that have surrounded the Irish presidency have usually sprung from efforts by the incumbent to poke his nose where it is not constitutionally appropriate. What’s the point? The president is neither an active ruler nor a properly apolitical figurehead.

Anyway, knowing as much about constitutional law as I know about marine biology, I will not push the specific point any further. Perhaps, the abolition of the presidency would propel us towards a totalitarian dystopia where baboons rule the country. (Perhaps we’re already there, you say. Ha ha! What a card.) Perhaps a cabal of Russian oligarchs would rapidly fill any such vacuum. Anything is possible in this horrible world.

Let’s widen our scope and consider the purpose of heads of state in general.

In France and the United States, the country’s political leader takes that role. The system has its drawbacks. When gap-toothed, creationist, neo-fascist militia members from the Rockies see President Obama greeting the King of Tonga they do not, presumably, feel overly happy about the fact that a Muslim communist who was born in Indonesia is representing their great country. Left-Bank intellectuals (do such things still exist?) probably feel similarly uneasy when the minute Monsieur Sarkozy turns up at state events.

The system is, however, somewhat more clear-cut than that which applies in countries – such as our own – where an effort is made to elect a largely ceremonial head of State.

Nobody pretends that Sarkozy or Obama is outside politics. When waving at foreign monarchs or cutting ribbons before municipal buildings, they are acting as hollow avatars for the eternal great office. Emperor Rufus of Ruritania is not shaking hands with a man; he is shaking hands with the institution.

At the other extreme we have those countries that still persevere with monarchies. Such systems are, of course, about as absurd as the traditions that define the governance of dwarfs in the novels of JRR Tolkien. One thinks of Dennis the serf's comments on the validity of King Arthur's authority in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. "Listen, strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government," he bellows. "Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony."

And yet. The role of head of state is so curiously arcane – acting as a living embodiment of the nation – that it sits quite comfortably with pre-medieval methods of appointment. If you really want a High Wizard then you may as well demand no further qualification than, at some point in the 18th century, his or her family managed to marry an in-bred, seven-fingered, German drunk from the House of Hanover. (Naming no names.)

In truth, no nation really needs a head of state. Let the visiting dignitaries make their way from airport to embassy without having to endure polite conversation from the current chief druid.

Get heroic firemen and distinguished sculptors to cut all those pesky ribbons.

If we must (and I suppose we must) appoint such people then the best plan may, perhaps, be the one outlined in GK Chesterton's great satirical novel The Napoleon of Notting Hill. Why not have a lottery to decide who becomes king?

Irresponsible, you say? Well, we trust that method to select our juries. It’s just a thought.