Presidential Elections Unconstitutional

national | politics / elections | opinion/analysis Wednesday March 30, 2005 18:31 by John Fitzgibbon - Various johnfitz at connect dot ie Dublin 01 2853387

Keep it Quiet! They don't want to know

Attempts to raise the constitutionality of Presidential elections in 1997 and recently via the papers and radio shows were completely ignored. The 1997 letter herewith outlines the thinking. A further aspect raised its head in the recent election, i.e. the denial by politicians of citizens right to stand for election and the coungy's right to elect their president.

Letter sent to: Sunday Business Post, Irish Times, Sunday Tribune, Irish Catholic, Sunday Independent, Irish Independent, Pat Kenny Show, Liveline, etc on 22/10/97

Editor,

The presidential election process is unconstitutional!

I want to challenge its constitutionality but haven't money or free legal aid!

Only Dana and Derek Nally used the constitutional options correctly. The others were preselected by parties & are seen to represent those parties.

Party supported candidates have a grossly unfair advantage over other candidates.

The Parties are putting forward 3 candidates of their choice. Generally, the odds against anyone else being elected without party support are very high. This has likely ruled out excellent potential candidates.

The peoples choice has been, and is being, subordinated to the parties' choices. (only 3 to 4% of adults are in a party)

A candidate needs only 20 TDs/senators or 4 Councils for nomination. There could be up to 10 nominated by TDs and senators each nominating 1, and another 6 or 8 nominated by councils. Abuse of the procedures until now doesn’t make it right.

Why do parties unconstitutionally, undemocratically, control the choice of president?. Has the Attorney General not a role in this?.

Why didn’t Albert go for 20 TDs when he was challenging his party’s joint sponsorship of John Hume or, later, if he was to be the people’s president?. Why didn’t others?? e.g. the other FF & FG hopefulls

The ridiculous controversy, damning Mary McAleese by association, shows that parties will stoop to anything to have THEIR OWN candidate elected.

The parties (particularly the PDs, Democratic Left, Fine Gael) vilified and harangued John Hume for talking with Jerry Adams to bring about the first peace process. That they would have agreed him as a cross-party choice for president, except for Albert’s pique, implicitly shows their cynical opportunism.

Politicians may have, in their own interest, damaged Mary McAleese’s chances of being a healer of divisions should she be elected. They quickly put the president in his/her box if (s)he puts a foot wrong but, they have commandeered the choice of president from the citizens.

In the current referendum the Govt must give equal weight & financial resources to both arguments as a result of the McKenna judgement in the Divorce referendum process.

In a Presidential election each candidate must, likewise, have a fair and equitable (based on their perceived merits only) chance of election. The parties have ruled that out

What of Govt parties nominating/ supporting/endorsing a candidate. Can Govt, or members of Govt, legally(constitutionally) add their weight to a particular candidate, attend rallies in favour of one candidate? & use state cars etc to attend them.

M Bannotti made a boob questioning the appropriateness of Northerners being candidates and was silenced while J Bruton took up the Adams connection (implicitly it seems, on her behalf) to damage the stronger runner.

Why doesn’t M Bannotti disassociate herself from FG & the ugly campaign being waged by John Bruton against M McAleese using the leaked documents &, probably, exacerbating the harm done by that leak?. D Nally distanced himself when he discovered he was being duped seemingly by the same sources as FG were using to blacken Mc Aleese.

If the Marys & Adi are interested in a democratic election & a fair deal for candidates and electors, why are they prepared to use the grossly unfair advantage of party support. That support virtually eliminates the potential of other runners to get elected &, unconstitutionally, fills a NON-PARTY political office with a PARTY candidate.

If the parties stayed out of the race it could be a democratic election and the person chosen would, more likely, be the peoples choice.
John Fitzgibbon