Unelected politicians - Democratic principles under threat

MANY a pub debate on Ireland’s economic woes has begun with the proposition that none of it would have happened if economist David McWilliams had had a seat at cabinet, or that we would recover quicker if Michael O’Leary was plucked from Ryanair and made minister for finance.

The theory that people with academic prowess or real-life expertise in business would do better at running the country’s finances than politicians with career records confined to the classroom or law library is an attractive one. But the idea of unelected professionals being parachuted into key positions in preference to people chosen by the electorate is alien to democratic principles.

Flawed though the concept and practice of democracy are, the power of the public to vote someone in and out of office is a fundamental protection against authoritarianism and is not one to be surrendered lightly. Yet two of our EU neighbours now have unelected prime ministers, a fact that has got a little lost in the breathless spectacle that preceded the departure of Greece’s George Papandreou and the dancing in the streets that followed the farewell of Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi.

That their replacements, Lucas Papademos and Mario Monti, are both accomplished economists is not in doubt. Nor is the potential value of their expertise at a critical time for the fortunes of their own countries and the eurozone as a whole. And given that the two have served in public institutions, we can hope they bring with them an ethos of public service that will override personal vanity in what are undeniably flattering new circumstances for both. But the fact remains that they never stood before an electorate and asked the voters to state their opinion by ballot on whether they were worthy to be public representatives. The selection committees calling the shots on this occasion are not even in their own countries. They are the leadership of Germany and France.

To put what has happened in an Irish context, imagine if, when Fianna Fáil was in government, the strongest EU countries had insisted on the removal of Brian Cowen and dictated, or suggested persuasively, which technocrat should take his place. There might have been the odd jig danced on the streets at Cowen’s leaving but there would also have been considerable alarm at the manner of his ejection and replacement.

The second sentence of the preamble to the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights declares that the union “is based on the principles of democracy” but those principles are being tested by the developments of recent days. Mr Papademos is heading only a caretaker government with a general election scheduled for early next year so electoral normality should be restored then.

Mr Monti, meanwhile, has to go before parliament to seek approval for his personally appointed cabinet and, as parliament is an elected body, it could be argued the process is only one step from a public plebiscite.

Both cases are being termed a suspension of democracy but care should be taken that a temporary suspension does not become a permanent dilution.