Opinion

Tom Kelly: Drab presidential campaign means northern non-voters not missing much

Presidential candidates, pictured left to right, Peter Casey, Gavin Duffy, Joan Freeman, Seán Gallagher, Michael D Higgins and Liadh Ní Riada take part in a debate. In an uninspiring field, the incumbent Michael D Higgins stands head and shoulders above his rivals, says Tom Kelly. Picture by Niall Carson/PA Wire
Presidential candidates, pictured left to right, Peter Casey, Gavin Duffy, Joan Freeman, Seán Gallagher, Michael D Higgins and Liadh Ní Riada take part in a debate. In an uninspiring field, the incumbent Michael D Higgins stands head and sho Presidential candidates, pictured left to right, Peter Casey, Gavin Duffy, Joan Freeman, Seán Gallagher, Michael D Higgins and Liadh Ní Riada take part in a debate. In an uninspiring field, the incumbent Michael D Higgins stands head and shoulders above his rivals, says Tom Kelly. Picture by Niall Carson/PA Wire

LAST week I listened with incredulity to would-be Irish president Peter Casey taking a cheap shot at the Irish Travelling community.

Until this presidential election I had never heard of Mr Casey.

When the election is over, hopefully he will slip back into obscurity as already his campaign is teetering on the verge of collapse.

Most of the runners this race would make Delaney's donkey look like a Derby winner.

The Irish presidential election has descended into a political farce. It's like an episode of Big Brother without the tantrums, sex and humour.

The incumbent Michael D. Higgins has done a great job over the past seven years.

He exercised his duties with dignity - especially those which could have been tricky around the centenaries of 1914 and 1916. His wife Sabrina has been an excellent consort and ambassador for Ireland.

Unfortunately in 2011, Higgins told the electorate that because of his age that he would only serve one term as president.

Not so now; like career politicians who inhabited the Áras before him, he is opting to to join the octogenarian club of former presidents, Sean T. O'Kelly and Eamon de Valera.

It would seem like his British counterpart, the Queen, President Higgins enjoys the regal trappings of life at the Áras, holding court amongst the Gaeilgeoirí, literati and luminaries of Ireland.

One can almost imagine Michael D. in his grand reception room, attired in Dumbledore fashion, replete with a red velvet jacket and hand-embroidered Uzbek smoking hat, reading passages of his own poetry to an enthralled and fawning audience.

According to a poetry reviewer in the Guardian, it seems that he makes for a better president than poet.

Certainly reading presidential speeches in full requires a background in ancient classics, philosophy and metaphysics. Higgins has a remarkable ability to make simple concepts sound complex.

Unlike his predecessor, Mrs McAleese, poor old Michael D has had to face the indignity of a second election. And this hasn't gone down well.

Delusions of grandeur tend to affect residents of high office and with that, comes a sense of over-reaching entitlement.

That sense of entitlement and lack of rules around presidential elections means that the president can opt out of debates at will, refuse to answer legitimate questions by claiming as the incumbent he is above the fray of political engagement - despite being a candidate in an election and that he can avoid public scrutiny of his administration of public funds when he could easily provide the transparency required.

On the latter subject, President Higgins is extraordinarily tetchy to any queries from the media or the other candidates.

He need not worry too much though. The extraordinary actions of both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil in not fielding their own candidates has almost certainly gifted Higgins another term.

Barring some major slip up or a scandal, this election is as damp as a box of squibs bought in Jonesborough market.

To his credit, Higgins has something that all the other candidates lack and that is gravitas. And of course, he has the benefit of the incumbency of the office.

Two mediocre TV celebrities, a presidential runner up from 2011, a post-conflict republican with a famous dad and a worthy but uninspiring charity worker are the competition that candidate Higgins now faces.

He can hardly be quaking in his boots. With the exception of the Sinn Féin candidate, it is hard to know what fuels these people to believe that they have the attributes to be President of Ireland.

Seán Gallagher has a right to feel hard done by. He was politically mugged in 2011.

His impressive business CV and tenacity in running again is undermined by his seven-year absence from public life.

The two other Dragons, Casey and Duffy, haven't really connected with the public.

Maybe Ireland just isn't ready for Trump-style politics. Sinn Féin has chosen a candidate who is relatively new blood but the declaration that she would wear a poppy will have gone down like a lead ballon in Connolly House, Belfast.

Sinn Féin knows they can't win but they desperately want to come second.

Pieta House founder and Senator Joan Freeman was thought to be a dark horse but she has been dogged from the outset about the advisability of taking a campaign loan given to her by former boyfriend and Herbalife millionaire Des Walsh.

President Higgins is 99.9 per cent certain of re-election, so having no vote in this election won't bother this northerner too much.