Proportional representation in Ireland — The sequel
As threatened during my last piece on the subject a few weeks ago, I am returning to Ireland’s system of proportional representation for elections to Dáil Éireann (parliament).
First a reminder that the system is characterised by two features: multi-seat constituencies now ranging from 3–5 seats and a transferable vote that may be moved from a more preferred to a less preferred candidate if it can no longer be “useful” to the former. This system has been in operation throughout the hundred years of the state’s existence.
During that time, it has broadly delivered on two essential conditions for an electoral system to retain public legitimacy and consent. First, there is a clear if not absolute correlation between the nationwide distribution of votes and Dáil seats between the various parties offering candidates for election. Second, most elections have led to the emergence of stable governments.
The second condition has become more difficult to achieve over the past four decades which have seen the comparative decline in the hegemony of the two “civil war” parties.
At their high watermark in November 1982, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael together secured 85% of the votes. At the last election, the two parties won only 43%. Their decline has gone hand in hand with increasing fragmentation of the political spectrum as represented in the Dáil which now comprises more smaller parties, more independents and, most recently, the ascent of Sinn Féin to join the ranks of the major parties. Its first TD was elected to the Dáil in 1997. 37 Sinn Féin TDs were elected in 2020.
The smaller parties are entirely on the left of the spectrum, reflecting also the decline of Labour as the solid “half” (then the sole self-professed left-wing party on the spectrum) in what was once known as the “two and a half” party system of the 1960s and 1970s when there was effectively nobody else around apart from themselves and the “civil war” parties.
This trend has two important consequences.
First, voters go to the polls without having clear visibility on the possible government formations that might emerge from the election. Second but less important, the post-election process of government formation takes longer.
Although recent governments have been put together by political parties rather than chosen by the people, they have nonetheless proved stable in the senses of being durable and being broadly accepted as legitimate.
After the present government was formed and Micheál Martin was elected Taoiseach, there was some murmuring in Sinn Féin supporting circles of the slogan “Not my Taoiseach” underpinned by a claim that its leader, Mary Lou McDonald, was somehow entitled to be Taoiseach because her party had won more votes (though not seats) than any other party. But, if that claim had serious moral merit, never mind constitutional foundation, Fianna Fáil would have governed continuously (rather than “merely” frequently) from 1932 to 2011 as the individual party which secured not only most votes but also most seats at every election during that period.
Nonetheless there are creaks in the system.
Before looking at these, we should refresh of our memories of the configuration of the Dáil that was formed after the last election in 2020.
First, the three parties comprising the current government won 85 of the 160 seats on offer. Fianna Fáil won 38 (including the outgoing Ceann Cómhairle or Chair who was automatically re-elected), Fine Gael won 35 and the Greens 12.
Sinn Féin won 37 seats, Labour and the Social Democrats 6 each and the Solidarity/People Before Profit grouping won 5.
The remaining 21 seats comprise individuals breaking down into four clusters. One comprises representatives of a recognised party. Peadar Tóibín, leader of Aontú, is an example. A second covers what are routinely called “gene pool” independents who once had a background in one of the main parties, for example the former Fine Gael Minister, Michael Lowry. A third is independents associated with a particular specialism, Verona Murphy of the Irish Road Haulage Association being an example — although she could also fit into the category of “gene pool” independent having previously run for Fine Gael. And the last is “pure” independents like Thomas Pringle from Donegal.
Those figures illustrate immediately why government formation has become difficult. No sustainable government could have been formed in 2020 with the participation of less than three parties. And the government formation that emerged required Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to make the historic “leap” of participating fully in government together, even if Fianna Fáil’s confidence-and-supply support for the Fine Gael minority government in the previous Dáil made that leap less of a stretch.
One “creak” in the system now is that it improves the prospects for smaller parties and independent candidates of being elected.
Arguably, voters should weigh their preference about the shape of government as well as their preference among the candidates as they apply their pen to the ballot paper. But, faced with an impenetrable fog regarding the former, they are likely to give more attention to the latter. We vote more on the basis of who we like than what government we would like to see. Elections now have an increasing dimension of televised talent shows about them.
Now, over 10% of our parliamentary representatives comprise “sole traders” who do not by any means constitute a coherent like-minded “bloc” and another 5–10% covers parties or groups whose seats are numbered in single figures (and which have negligible appetite to be in government). If 15–20% of Dáil members are off limits altogether for participation in government, the available pool is only around 80% of members from which a robust coalition must be formed of more than 50% of members.
These eddies and currents explain why it is likely that Sinn Féin will be unable to assemble an exclusively left-wing coalition government after the next election. The party will almost certainly need the participation or committed support of either Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil.
The dilemma facing parties at election time mirrors that of voters. By now, all of today’s “major” parties, including Sinn Féin, know that they have no prospect of winning an overall majority of seats and “being” the government on their own. Their best hope is to maximise their scope to be “in” government and preferably to be the leading party of that government.
The challenge the parties aspiring to government face, therefore, is simultaneously to project a distinct identity, a market “niche” that is clearly their own, but one that is sufficiently malleable to facilitate two other objectives.
First, the definition of that “identity” must be supple enough to preserve maximum flexibility to participate in a governing coalition involving probably more than one other party. The fewer bridges burnt with other parties, the better.
Second, it must at least not alienate but preferably engender some positive appeal among voters whose first preference might be already “spoken for” elsewhere but whose lower preferences might not. When it used have a decent expectation of forming governments alone, Fianna Fáil would loudly disdain transfers from candidates outside the party, proclaiming proudly: “If you’re not with us, you’re agin’ us.” Now, all parties are at pains to reassure voters that lower transfers are welcome and appreciated even if first preferences are not on offer. A slice off the loaf is better than no bread.
All of that encourages androgynisation or homogenisation of political discourse. Recent politics have been largely a scrap around the rim of an amorphous “centre” with the extreme left and independents looking on from the wings. The rise of Sinn Féin alters that dynamic a bit because it tries to straddle being both mainstream and radical simultaneously. There is definitely a market niche for that at the moment, but the party’s “semi-detached relationship with the centre will make it more difficult for it to woo mainstream parties to join with it in government.
While much of the so-called “debate” around election time is around the individual parties’ ostensible plans for the future, the real debate is between who is currently “in” and who is currently “out”. Government parties run the gauntlet of attacks on their record for the previous term and opposition parties dish out ladles of sound hindsight about how much better they would have done things, as supposed evidence that they can be trusted to do things better in the future. Any “plans” they might have are merely weapons to be deployed in that battle rather than serious statements of intent, not least because the shape of the government will be established only after the election dust settles.
Since the “great crash” of 2008, no political party has enhanced their electoral standing by being in government. As the architects of the crash, Fianna Fáil were “hammered” in 2011. Fine Gael and Labour both suffered for their oversight of “austerity” from then until 2016. In better times, Fine Gael suffered from being the outgoing government in 2020 despite at least modest improvement in the economy, coming back with 15 seats less than in 2016. And Fianna Fáil also suffered in 2020 from being associated with government, albeit less badly, winning six fewer seats.
Voters today are truculent and grouchy with a stronger sense of entitlement than they have of responsibility, and much readier to vote to reprimand incumbents than to reward them. They are encouraged in this by the media who effectively constitute an opposition voice off the pitch but in the stand. Slip ups, hard cases and good causes make juicy stories. How everything might be paid for and by whom are less alluring tales. The well of things on which public money could usefully be spent is infinite. People’s appetite to pay tax is decidedly finite.
The irony of today’s political dynamics is that Sinn Féin’s biggest qualification to govern is that they have never dirtied their bibs by being in government heretofore (though they might have dirtied them in other ways…) and they now have enough “critical mass” to be credible in their aspiration to lead government.
Even though the next election is probably two years away, heading off for their Christmas break shortly, the government parties will already be reflecting, individually if not collectively, on how they might mitigate a similar dismal fate to their recent predecessors — or even buck the trend altogether.
And Sinn Féin will be mulling hard about the balance they should strike between pumping up perceptions of the wonders they would perform in government and dampening down expectations. Should they really be saying there is a full goody bag for every member of the political audience (except the proverbial “fat cats”)?
But, one thing for sure, nobody will revisit Eamon deValera’s failed attempt to change the electoral system in the interests of “stronger” government. That dog won’t even bark and it wouldn’t hunt even if it yelped.
PR encourages “lowest common denominator” (don’t frighten the horses) government rather than “highest common factor” (shake things up) government. We will ruminate another time on whether that is a good or a bad thing for Ireland.
