Voters should be careful when chasing rainbows

Legitimate opposition distinguishes democracy from other forms of government

Legitimate opposition distinguishes democracy from other forms of government. It provides a political channel for grievances, and alternative non-governmental points of view. An effective opposition puts government on its mettle and is ready to replace it, should it fail.

Democracy works on the principle of competition and goes hand in hand with the market economy. Conversely, Marxist socialism is a system of state monopoly, politically and economically, and is only irreversible in the enforced absence of elections.

Some countries liberated during the 20th century have dominant parties derived from that struggle.

My father, who met Pandit Nehru on a number of occasions and wrote a warm obituary of his daughter Indira for The Irish Times in 1984, would have derived much satisfaction from the Congress Party's return to power under the self-denying leadership of Sonia Gandhi.

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Nehru's prison letters to Indira in the early 1930s contained several chapters on the Irish independence struggle, with a particular focus on Eamon de Valera. Fianna Fáil has some affinity with the Congress Party, as it has with Gaullism.

The local and European elections on June 11th, while mainly about local candidates and issues, will be closely scrutinised for emerging evidence of the political viability of a new rainbow coalition, principally consisting of Fine Gael, Labour and Greens.

Only Fine Gael has explicitly recommended transfers to its desired future partners. The reason this is not reciprocated is that neither Labour nor the Greens want to alienate potential transfers from other sympathetic political groups or independents, many of whom could be put off by a closed preference between the three parties. That factor will still be a consideration at the general election.

It is rarely dwelt upon that a three-party rainbow coalition would need to win, net, about 25 seats between them, i.e. disregarding seats won and lost off each other. Such a feat has not been achieved before and would require something of a political earthquake, of which political seismologists have so far given no warning.

Otherwise, a fourth party or group would, at a minimum, almost certainly be needed to make up the numbers. The possible candidates would be the PDs, acting as a swing party; a Sinn Féin that has left behind its paramilitary links; and/or from the (most likely diminished) group of independents.

The assumption that Enda Kenny, leader of Fine Gael, would be taoiseach cannot be taken for granted, unless Fine Gael wins at least half the seats (42) required for a majority. Serious efforts were made in 1992 and in 1994 to install a (rotating) Labour Taoiseach. Will any pre-election pact specify an agreed nominee for taoiseach, as that could be an important influencing factor for many voters?

Obviously, the parties do not need to come together yet, indeed would prefer to maximise their vote, which is best done with as few reminders as possible of future policy compromises. They are mainly united by a desire to evict Fianna Fáil, though there is also ideological antagonism between Labour and the PDs.

Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are partners in democracy, though not in government, and the period of co-operation marked by the Tallaght strategy in 1987-9 played an important role in the redressment of the Irish economy.

The short Fianna Fáil-Labour government of 1993-94 was exceptionally productive, and was popular with the trade unions. It was disappointing when Labour broke back to find safety with its previous partners.

The PDs, unlike Labour, stuck with their 1997 coalition choice, riding out crises along the way, and reaped the reward in a doubling of their seats and a second consecutive term of government. If things had been handled better in 1994, Labour could have become a natural party of government rather than of opposition.

Labour's positive policy positions have become quite fluid, and past experience provides some reassurance as to how a Fine Gael-Labour partnership would work. The larger uncertainty hangs over the willingness of the Greens, like their German counterparts led by Joschka Fischer, to abandon or dilute for the sake of office many of their most cherished and distinctive policies.

The statements in their manifesto that the Greens are "the only political force with an animal-rights philosophy at its core", that it would phase out live exports, ban phosphates and campaign to have 10 per cent of the EU's land farmed organically by 2010 will alarm many farmers.

There is a gulf between their strong attachment to neutrality and Fine Gael's desire to abandon it, and between the strong pro-European track record of Fine Gael and Labour and the deep Euroscepticism of the Greens that has led them to oppose every EU treaty, though they are very coy about their attitude to the new constitutional treaty.

They are federalists in one respect. They belong to the European Federation of Green Parties.

Those who despair of the Northern situation will be reassured that the DUP and Sinn Féin have reached agreement on one point. They are both opposed to a European super state!

It is still beyond me how Sinn Féin can cling to such tired Thatcherite clichés. At least the British National Health Service, which they want to extend all-Ireland, has some merits. Greater clarity is needed, North and South. With reduced Irish seats in the European Parliament, Euro-scepticism is a wasted space.

The real issue in 2006 or 2007, but which voters may start contemplating, is what effect a complete change of government would have on confidence in economic management and therefore on jobs, taxes and prosperity, and the affordability of desired improvements in services. The short-lived rainbow coalition 1994-19977 managed the economy well, if unexcitingly. What people would be concerned about is the danger of the type of impact that the SPD-Green coalition has had in Germany since 1999, with confidence reduced to a low ebb.