Madam, - Last week we saw the American people voting clearly for change, with the Democratic Party winning the presidency and extra seats in the Senate and the House of Representatives. Meanwhile in Ireland, the Progressive Democrats have decided to wind up the party.
The PDs, most unusually, have decided to fold while still a Government party. They have been in power throughout 14 of the past 19 years, despite obtaining only a small fraction of the popular vote in elections since 1989.
That such a small party could spend so many years in power is worthy of analysis. Is it a good thing that the views of the few can obtain so much more prolonged influence than the views of the many in our political system?
The PDs' longevity in office indicates also how difficult it is for Fianna Fáil to be dislodged from power. Since the parties seeking anti-Fianna Fáil mandates in 2007 - Fine Gael, Labour, the Green Party and Sinn Féin - obtained more seats after the election than Fianna Fáil and the PDs, it is clear that most people voted for a change of Government. However, due to the niceties of the Irish political system (helped by the Green Party breaking its previously iron-clad promise not to go into coalition with Fianna Fáil), a change of Government effectively was not obtained last year.
Although your Editorial of November 10th praises the past influence of the PDs, their existence served to make a change of government more difficult and this has made governments more lax and inefficient. It was clear from the votes the PDs took from Fine Gael in the 1980s that their mindset, when formed, was of a similar ilk to a wing of that party. This was typified in constituencies such as Dublin South, where the PD first-preference vote of 20.9 per cent in 1987 was almost identical to the drop in support for Fine Gael in that constituency from the previous election in 1982.
An aspect of the formation of the PDs was the number of disillusioned politicians from devoutly Fianna Fáil families joining the party. Perhaps a sentimental sense of allegiance prevented them from taking a better course of action and defecting to Fine Gael (then in government).
The demise of a small party cannot be described as a sad event for democracy. It is to our disadvantage that we do not have a de facto two-party system as in the United States or a three-party system as in the UK. The more parties with Dáil seats, the greater the distortion between what the electorate votes for and what government is actually formed after an election. The fact that the PDs remained in office for so long has exposed a flaw in our PR-STV system. The most contentious issue at last year's election was the state of Ireland's health service, yet the same Minister of Health was appointed again after the election. We voted for change last year, just as the American people did last week but, by contrast, we didn't get it.
We have to ask whether there is really a pertinent need, in most cases, for smaller, niche-interest parties, pushing agendas that can be instead pursued within the realm of a larger party. For example, there is no reason why environmentally minded aspiring politicians cannot join Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael or Labour, rather than the Green Party, to promote their views. Al Gore did not need to join the US Green Party to highlight the need to alleviate climate change and, indeed, his promotion of such policies holds a greater weight due to his prominence within the much more influential Democratic Party. - Yours, etc,
Madam, - Charles Haughey himself would perhaps have considered it a GUBU scenario. The Progressive Democrats, including Mary Harney, were primarily established to keep Haughey from power but ended up keeping him in power. And now the PDs are no more and Fianna Fáil ends up keeping Mary Harney in power! - Yours, etc,