Maroc - NEWSDAY.CO.TT - A la Une - 09/Dec 06:38

Could it happen here?

IMAGINE, for a moment, that a political party emerged in TT so distasteful to the mainstream it forced the PNM and UNC into coalition with each other. Such is the case in Ireland, more or less, where the dominant political bands are Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. They originated as opposing factions in a civil war – so we understand they take their differences quite seriously. They continued to oppose each other until 2020, when a third force emerged, claiming the largest share of the vote at that year’s general election and thereby a seat at the table of government. To deny that claim, the rivalry that has defined the politics of the modern Irish republic had one option: bury the hatchet and join together. What forced Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael into such drastic action was the rise of a third party – Sinn Féin – with ideological and historical baggage neither of them can abide. Whereas Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are relatively conservative centre-right parties, Sinn Féin is a more left-wing, somewhat populist outfit. More pertinently, this incarnation of it (both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael emerged from the original party bearing that name) is best remembered as the political wing of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) during the turbulent period of Irish and British history known as The Troubles. Stripped to its most basic, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael view Sinn Féin as a party for terrorists and vagabonds. At least, that is the justification for the action they took once Sinn Féin’s support at the ballot box became too big to ignore. Thus, for the best part of the last five years, Ireland has been governed by a coalition of its two traditional opposing political forces. Modern Ireland has never had a government that wasn’t headed by either Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael. Since 2020, it’s been governed by both. The role of prime minister (in Irish, Taoiseach) was rotated between the two, Fianna Fáil’s Micheál Martin taking the first stint from June 2020-December 2022; Fine Gael’s Leo Varadkar then took up the leadership before giving way to his party colleague Simon Harris. Key cabinet posts were also rotated, so when one party controlled the office of Taoiseach, the other had one of its own as Minister of Finance. In effect, Ireland has spent the last five years watching Colm Imbert deliver budgets for Kamla Persad-Bissessar, or Dave Tancoo cut taxes for Dr Keith Rowley. Perhaps even more surprising than that this happened in Ireland is that, after last week’s general election, it seems to have opted to do it again. The election delivered much the same result as in 2020: Sinn Féin on pretty much level terms with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael; the latter two forced to co-operate if they don’t want Sinn Féin in government. The expectation is that an arrangement very much like that of 2020 will govern Ireland again in 2024 (or 2025: it’s thought the negotiations will take a few weeks). Could such a thing happen in TT? There is no analogue for Sinn Féin in the current local political landscape, but even if there were, it’s hard to conceive of a similar situation arising without constitutional change. Ireland’s democracy uses a single-transferable vote system – a form of proportional representation, so a 20-25 per cent vote share is sufficient for Sinn Féin to win a lot of seats in parliament and radically alter the shape of Irish politics. Locally, a similar vote share in 2007 won the Congress of the People no seats at all. Parties challenging the prevailing duopoly famously tend to founder on the brutal exigencies of the Westminster system. First-past-the-post voting allows for only one winner, by design. It is not intended to promote a great deal of nuance. This is not a call for TT to adopt a single-transferable-vote system, more a commentary on the way a different electoral system can generate a political scenario that would be near impossible for the system in this country to replicate. I am aware of no perfect democracies, nor any where there isn’t a near-constant discussion of possible changes to electoral systems. Irish governments have tried at least twice to change their system of voting from the single transferable vote to first-past-the-post. To have an electoral system is to think about changing it. Austin Fido is a writer and researcher. He lived briefly in Ireland in the 90s. He had no involvement in politics, but he once helped Ben Okri and Linton Kwesi Johnson settle a dispute about signs of the zodiac in Galway The post Could it happen here? appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.