There has been some debate as of late as to whether it is appropriate for Michael D. Higgins to run for a second term of the Irish presidency.
Let’s cut to the chase.
Who would the other options be?
There’s always been chatter of former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern throwing his hat into the race (the same hat he managed to hold on to as he briskly hopped off the very ship his policies plunged into a years-long recession, before swimming off unscathed).
Joe Brolly is asked about it several times a year and, with all due respect to the man, if he can’t be diplomatic about a GAA game, then we’re not sure he’s going to be able to do it when there are real stakes at play.
Independent TD Michael Fitzmaurice has stated his intention to run if Michael D. Higgins seeks renomination — though it’s unclear for exactly what purpose. In a recent interview with the Longford Leader, Fitzmaurice’s vague remarks essentially amount to, “Michael D. — I wouldn’t be a fan, now”.
But the real threat to the Irish presidency doesn’t come from men like Fitzmaurice. It comes from Ireland’s only two political parties to churn out a Taoiseach in the country’s entire history.
Ireland would not be well-served by a president who espouses the same agenda as either of our two major parties.
These agendas are the only agendas that the Republic of Ireland has been subjected to since its establishment in the 1920s. We’ve been subjected to aggressive Catholicism to the point of violence. We’ve been subjected to economic recklessness to the point of recession. We’ve been subjected to more Status Quo than the old Argos ads.
Leo Varadkar has already got Justin Trudeau, he doesn’t need anybody else to match his socks with.
Mícheál Martin does not need another powerful voice to help him undercut every government measure when we know damn well that they’d do the very same — because that’s all these cowboys have ever done. Do-si-do’d the Oireachtas between them and led the Irish people down the same cycle of boom-bust economies, boom-bust housing markets and some of the slowest-moving social advancement imaginable in a developed nation for decades, and decades, and decades.
Ireland’s government has historically failed to provide freedoms that its people deserve. Freedoms its people require for the sake of human rights.
You think this man was opposed to legalising condoms in the 1970s? You think that this man was opposed to legalising homosexuality in the 1980s? Look at that open shirt.
I think the fuck not.
If you needed a reason to love Michael D Higgins: a) this photo of him at Bob Dylan in Slane in 1984 pic.twitter.com/dYfY4UCiAA
— Cian Nugent (@ciannugent) May 30, 2015
But parliamentarily, the odds are stacked almost immovably in the favour of the old guard. We have never had so much as a coalition without FG or FF as the senior member. Even junior members such as the Green Party, the PDs and the Labour Party end up utterly decimated at their base because they have no choice but to kowtow to every austerity measure put before them when they make it into “government”. They have all been ripped from the political landscape root and stem.
Who survives? The lads whose policies they’re slaughtered for supporting.
The reason for this is simple and complicated all at once. When seeking representation as local communities, many constituencies in Ireland remain mired in a hangover that began after Michael Collins and his mates went on a mad treaty-signing session and split the country in two, both figuratively and literally.
When Irish people go to the polls to vote in a general election this October, they are often more heavily influenced by the voting habits of their parents and their parishes rather than any economic or social ideology (ideologies which cannot be found in the manifestos of our two main parties anyway — differing stances on the USC and empty promises to finally fix the hospital bed crisis are not ideologies, after all, they are pabulum).
However, when the Irish seek representation as a nation, very different things are possible.
Ireland’s only two Labour Party presidents have absolutely reflected the better nature of her people. Mary Robinson is revered around the world as a champion of human rights and remains a leading voice in the fight against climate change.
Similarly, Michael D. Higgins represents the choice Ireland is allowed to make when its blue-shirted and brown-envelope behemoths nullify each other comprehensively enough that we get a chance to broaden our horizon.
That’s not, by any means, to say that all Labour Party presidential candidates should be preferred. It is simply to say that opportunities to house influence outside the same corridors of power we’ve walked since the 1920s should be hungrily welcomed.
As a leader, Higgins’ appreciation for the interests of the Irish people is beyond reproach. He has, throughout his entire public career, taken stances that seek to better the lives of the working and middle-class in Ireland. He is a true believer in the importance of education, the arts, access to fundamental healthcare. He is an activist. He is a patriot.
In fact, rather than awarding Michael D the office for life, untested, maybe we should welcome a race between Higgins and others such as Bertie and Enda. Is anyone really under any doubt as to how that would go?
One man who pushed the country into economic ruin, another the poster-boy for austerity, and the third a man whose politics (both economic and social) have simply never even come close to being implemented in Ireland… despite the Irish people’s grave and unmistakable distaste for its governments of the past 17 years or more.
Michael D. Higgins should run for a second term. We should vote him in for a second term. If Michael D. Higgins wants a third term, we should let him run for it and we should vote for him a third time.
If Michael D. Higgins lives to be 1,000 years old, we should keep putting him back in Áras an Uachtaráin for as long as he likes or until we manage to build a parliamentary system where we can elect a government that genuinely seeks to represent the interests of all Irish people.
The only complaint we can have about Michael D. Higgins is that he hasn’t been Michael D. Higgins enough — so give him the office for life and let him crank the D up to 11.
Clip via PBO2012
Furthermore, there’s always the risk of Bob Geldof or the Happy Pear twins going for it and I just don’t think we’d be able for that debate, as a nation. We’ve been through enough.
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