“There’s a new one!” declared Daughter Number Four as we walked to school. She was pointing at an election poster: even she had been noticing how few of them there were. When I explained that this was, in part, because there were only three candidates (this was before Jim Gavin’s spectacular departure from the race last weekend), she wanted to know why. She was slightly aghast: they’d just had student council election in her school, and there were way more candidates than that.
I changed the subject. This wasn’t because I’m not familiar with the various nomination processes. Everybody is. It’s just that I knew what would happen: I’d start explaining, and after five minutes she’d be holding up her hands begging me to stop; then be utterly baffled when I told her that the boring events I was describing (other than Gavin dropping out) were likely to have been the most exciting period of this election campaign.
In fairness, there’s no requirement for an election to be exciting. It’s not designed as a form of entertainment: even if it often is. But the pattern seems to be that when an election is dull, people don’t care as much; and neglect to vote.
Don’t worry: this isn’t going to be some patronising rant where I explain to you the importance of the democratic process. I’m assuming you know that yourself, and you know all the reasons why people should exercise their franchise. In a general, local or European election, that argument is easy to make.
But for the presidency? The analysts are telling us that this poll may see a low turnout – and that’s following a record low turnout at the last presidential run-out in 2018. If that happens, there will be a lot of waffle about “engaging” with citizens: but that ignores the possibility that the large amount of (non)voters know exactly what they are doing. They don’t think the presidency is that important.
[ Seán Moncrieff: The wifi went. It was raining. How would our daughter cope?Opens in new window ]
They know that presidential powers are hugely constrained and that, for the most part, the office runs on vibes. Michael D and the two Marys were masters at it, and for the most part, the Irish public were proud of them; which in turn made us feel a little better about ourselves.
But the problem with vibes is that you can’t just manufacture them. They have to come about organically: the person who is president has to be able to do more than smile for photos and shake hands. They have to be a vibey individual. You have to believe that they love being president because they love Ireland. And by saying this, I’m not attempting to demean the office. Vibes are a good thing: if the conditions are right, they can encourage people to take real-world action.
But in advance, vibes are tricky to test for. The only possible indicator of vibeyness in a candidate is a bit of charisma. Even a teensy-weensy bit. I don’t want to be mean about this crop of candidates. But, you know.
Instead, they are being quizzed about their opinions on the big issues of our times, as if they had a raft of policy ideas that they will execute as soon as they move into the Áras. But they won’t. Our president can say stuff, but not do stuff. And the voters know it: no wonder so many of them aren’t too excited about voting.
(Full disclosure: I’m not too excited about voting.)
But there is a slippery slope danger here. If we start cherry-picking which elections to vote in and which to ignore, it becomes less of a necessary requirement of citizenship. And the turnout rates in other elections in Ireland are starting to dip as well, widening the trust gap between the governors and the governed. We can see what conditions that distrust has produced in other countries. Voting might not always be fun, but we have to force ourselves.
