Voters preferred honesty to bluster

IT’S almost 40 years since Michael D Higgins became a member of the Oireachtas.

He was appointed to the 13th Seanad by then taoiseach Liam Cosgrave in 1973 and began a national political career that culminated when he was elected the ninth President of Ireland yesterday.

His depth of experience has helped him pass an historic milestone. He is the first person who served in the Seanad and Dáil and went on to be elected President. None of the other candidates had a comparable political record and the fact that Mr Higgins had declared his presidential ambitions long before any of his polling-day rivals ultimately proved to be a significant advantage.

That this advantage did not come into play until the dying days — if not hours — of the campaign, when his strongest rival, Sean Gallagher, imploded under the kind of scrutiny anyone hoping to be elected President should prepare for, is neither here nor there. His experience allowed him remain focused while Mr Gallagher was smothered by the simple fact that the electorate rated honesty far more highly than the catch-all vacuum of irrational positivity. A victory for substance over transparent, vacuous glad handing.

President-elect Higgins will follow two predecessors who redefined the office and made it far more pro-active and relevant through all the communities of Ireland.

He may choose to follow a similar path but may have to tailor his themes to reflect the unsettling economic circumstances of our times.

As he will have no role in policy he might occasionally play the part of an avuncular and reassuring elder statesman. In the face of the extraordinary and contradictory realities that make up euro rescue plans the challenge that role represents should not be underestimated.

However, his record and life-long commitment to the left would give him a credibility in that specific role that would be almost invaluable in rebuilding national confidence and self-esteem.

This was a very bad, almost disastrous, presidential election for Fine Gael and for Fianna Fáil. Fine Gael undid itself by selecting by far the worst possible candidate from the options available.

If that was not bad enough, the party’s leadership showed itself unfit for the mano-a-mano street fighting needed to manage candidate selection at the very highest level. Compare their failure to Bertie Ahern’s masterful if Machiavellian delivery of the Fianna Fáil nomination to Mary McAleese. Let us hope this amateurism does not inform other far more important strategies.

Fianna Fáil’s faux absence from the race, and all of the foolish flirtations before it began, again squandered Micheál Martin’s leadership credentials and the party’s hopes of rejuvenation. A sad fact underlined by their defeat in the Dublin by-election. Who would have thought a decade ago that there would not be even one Fianna Fáil TD representing Dublin? Not even one Soldier of Destiny representing our capital as the centenary of 1916 looms? How their founding fathers must be spinning in their graves.

These failures will probably shorten Mr Martin’s leadership and stir the embers of resistance to Mr Kenny’s leadership and especially his praetorian guard who failed so spectacularly to deliver on this occasion.

As the postmortem on what has been described as a dirty campaign begins, the rejected will look around for excuses, trying to blame anyone but their own lacklustre campaigns.

Inevitably some will try to blame the media for doing no more than having a memory and asking the questions those memories made absolutely unavoidable.

Martin McGuinness is far too intelligent a man — he was in so many ways the most impressive if toxic candidate — to imagine that he could be selective about this past. But then getting him elected would have been a bonus for Sinn Féin did not really expect. However, they succeeded spectacularly in their primary objective — the humiliation and further marginalisation of Fianna Fáil. Who will ever forget the complete, cold, unblinking filleting of their Trojan horse by Mr McGuinness? It gave a glimpse of what all candidates and parties can expect in future general elections. Do not say you have not been warned.

Yesterday was a triumph for Michael D Higgins — and the Labour party — and it is one we should all be happy to celebrate.

Throughout his long career he has shown and innate decency and honesty, a commitment to social equity and human rights, a recognition of the power of culture to lead and inspire that makes him eminently suitable to be our President.