Leaders showed greatness when they lost elections

INSIDE POLITICS: Our major political parties deserve credit for our proud tradition of parliamentary democracy

THERE WAS a sense of relief in the air yesterday as people went purposefully to the polling stations to cast their votes. Most voters have the good sense to know that a change of government will not make the country’s problems vanish overnight, but there was a palpable feeling that a line was finally being drawn under a dark chapter in the country’s history.

That mood will be tested when the incoming government starts making decisions about how to deal with the enormous problems that still face the country.

However, the new government will have the benefit of a mandate from the people for its actions. It will also have the enormous advantage of not having been responsible for creating the mess in the first place.

Those who have derided the election before a vote was even cast, simply because it is not going to give them the result they want, have highlighted the continuing inability of some people to appreciate the fundamental values of democracy.

This election was wide open to parties and individuals, long-established or newly invented, and 566 candidates for the Dáil have had the courage to put their names before the people.

Of course, the big parties start with the advantage of organisation, funding and media attention, but Irish political history has shown that the system can be challenged by people with courage, dedication and political skill.

Parliamentary democracy in Ireland certainly has its flaws, but as Winston Churchill once remarked: “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried.”

The human thirst for freedom is currently challenging tyrannical regimes in the Arab world, and, hopefully, it will be as successful as the movement that brought an end to the tyranny of communism more than 21 years ago.

Ireland has had a proud record as one of the very few newly established states in which a parliamentary democracy set up in the 20th century managed to survive. For that our major political parties deserve a lot of the credit.

The good sense of succeeding generations of Irish people had a lot to do with it as well, but the 20th century is littered with examples of how irresponsible political leadership led to the destruction of civilised societies before people had time to grasp what was happening.

One of the defining features of Irish political life since the Civil War in 1922 has been the acceptance of the primacy of the people as expressed at the ballot box. The greatness of political leaders and parties has been most evident not when they won elections but when they lost them.

The prime example was the acceptance by WT Cosgrave and Cumann na nGaedheal of the will of the people in February 1932 when the political movement they had defeated in a civil war 10 years earlier, now redefined as Fianna Fáil, won a general election.

Not surprisingly, given the circumstances, there were all sorts of rumours that the government would not hand over power when the Dáil met.

A number of senior Fianna Fáil TDs were armed as they entered the chamber, and James Dillon, then an Independent TD who voted for de Valera, claimed he saw a senior Fianna Fáil politician assembling a machine-gun in a telephone booth at the back of the chamber. Before the crucial vote on the formation of government, instead of plotting a coup as Fianna Fáil feared, Cosgrave was in his office playing the card game pontoon with a senior colleague. His calm acceptance of defeat and de Valera’s adherence to democratic norms in the following decade enabled a transition managed by few states.

Interestingly, in the light of the current election which seems to be about to bring an end to the Fianna Fáil hegemony which began in 1932, de Valera’s victorious election campaign then had uncanny similarities with the one waged in 2011 by Enda Kenny and Fine Gael.

All those years ago Fianna Fáil campaigned with a comprehensive plan that focused on jobs, the elimination of waste in the public service, a reduction in the number of TDs and the abolition of the Seanad, a more equitable distribution of the State’s resources and political reform.

One of the big issues identified by de Valera was the pay and perks of politicians, and he promised to cut the taoiseach’s salary from €2,500 to €1,000 a year. The swift implementation of the programme after the election provided the foundation stone for decades of Fianna Fáil dominance.

That dominance was interrupted from time to time only because a range of smaller parties accepted their responsibility to the people for forming a government after elections in order to provide a realistic alternative to Fianna Fáil.

The wide acceptance of the legitimacy of the election result by winners and losers, whatever it brings, is crucially important to the health of a democracy.

Political scientist and broadcaster Brian Farrell identified one of the advantages of our long, drawn-out election count as being that it gives all of those involved time to come to terms with the result.

He regarded the count and all the media coverage that goes with it as one of the great expressions of Irish democracy which enables the voters, the politicians and the political parties to adjust to a new reality.

The shape of that political reality for 2011 and beyond will begin to come clear this evening as the count unfolds.