A chara, – Liam Weeks highlights that the fragmentation of Irish politics will make it more difficult to form majority governments ("Pre-election alliances could help counter 'seismic shock' to the party system", Opinion & Analysis, August 11th). He sets out as possible scenarios that of Belgium (long periods to form governments), Italy (frequent changes of government) or the option of frequent elections.
There is another option we could explore – the Danish model. Like Ireland, Denmark has a multiparty system, with larger parties of the centre left, centre and centre right, as well as a populist nationalist party and several smaller blocs. No party has had a majority in a century and, generally, governments do not have majorities in the Folketing.
The result is that for a Bill to become law, there must be negotiation between all of the parties. Following elections in June, a government was formed comprising only members of the Venstre party, which had 34 of the 179 seats in parliament (Venstre is a centrist liberal party and allied with Fianna Fáil at European level).
For Ireland, this model would result in more powers for the Oireachtas and a greater focus on policymaking. Ministers would be more answerable to parliament. Denmark’s system is also regarded as a model of transparency and accountability. (It is worth noting, though, that Denmark, like the rest of Europe, has a stronger system of local government than here that ensures a greater emphasis on legislating in the national parliament).
Our political system too often focuses on “winner takes all” rather than how to deliver the best possible policy solutions. – Is mise,
Cllr MALCOLM BYRNE ,
Fianna Fáil,
Gorey,
Co Wexford.
Sir, – Dr Liam Weeks rightly indicates that public trust in the political system would be stronger if parties were to be more definitively transparent as regards their potential post-election coalition partners. However, the engineering of institutional reforms to encourage same, as proposed by Dr Weeks, might be considered to be superfluous.
Labour's decision to form a coalition with Fianna Fáil in 1992, together with the Green Party's post-election volte-face resolution to do the same in 2007, led to both parties being admonished by the electorate at the next elections.
Fine Gael and Labour should form a clearly defined voting transfer pact for the upcoming election, because it would be stupid for both parties not to do so. An illustrative example is the November 1982 general election, which resulted in Fianna Fáil obtaining 45.2 per cent of the popular vote with 75 seats. In contrast Fine Gael garnered 39.2 per cent but received 70 seats, while Labour obtained 9.4 per cent of votes, and won 16 seats.
In any case, it would be entirely appropriate for both parties to seek re-election on a joint platform of continuing the current administration’s work for another term. – Yours, etc,
JOHN KENNEDY,
Goatstown,
Dublin 14.