Changing politics - Diversity brings huge challenges

This week’s European and local elections will, if the polls are reliable, return a diverse range of representatives and mark another milestone in what seems the inevitable decline of the two parties which dominated Irish political life since the foundation of the State.

This is not a particularly Irish problem as right across Europe voters seem ready to turn away from the centrist, moderate, or conservative parties that dominated Europe for decades and support extremes of right or left. This may show democracy at its inclusive best but it also moves us a step towards the chaos that made Italy ungovernable more or less since the end of the Second World War.

We can see an early indication of that great sea change in the composition of the Dáil. Fianna Fáil, once an almost omnipotent force, has been reduced to a bit part while a growing number of independents, united by no more than their opposition to the Government, watch almost impotently as Sinn Féin grows ever stronger. Whether that strength ever reaches the point that Sinn Féin can secure a place in government remains to be seen. There is of course the possibility, however remote, that when that moment arrives the two oldest, most conservative parties — Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael — will put their by now irrational Civil War enmity aside and unite to stave off their worst fears: Sinn Féin in office.

It is a quarter of a century since the last single-party government held office. Over the last 30 years, the combined FF/FG first-preference vote has been falling. In the elections up to the early 1980s, that vote was 80% or more, but by 2011 it had fallen below 54%. It is unlikely that Friday’s voting will reverse that trend. That almost half — 49% — of the electorate expressed hostility to all parties in a recent survey suggests an acceleration of that fragmentation, yet we have not considered how to modify our political process to cope with this fragmentation and try to make stable government a possibility rather than an ever more unobtainable ideal.

This is not a new problem but it is exacerbated by our almost unique enthusiasm for electing independents. There are templates to cope with this situation and it may be time for us to consider them. That would, after all, be far better than waiting until our parliament is such a kaleidoscope of views that it becomes almost impossible to get anything even mildly controversial done.

A way to limit the destructive impact of electoral diversity is the imposition of thresholds for parliamentary representation. Many countries preclude parties which do not get, say, 5% of the national vote from taking seats in parliament. This is a double-edged sword as it discourages people voting for smaller parties or independents as they know it will be a wasted vote. If those rules were in place, this week’s results might be very different and many of the smaller parties and independents might feel aggrieved. Be that as it may, it is time we confronted the bigger question — how can we, in the context of ever more diverse representation, ensure that the establishment of a stable government, one that honours our democracy, is a probability rather than an increasingly remote possibility.