Almost everyone was surprised by Leo Varadkar’s resignation. Watching it, I also felt lucky.
I’ve lived, worked and voted on both sides of the border, and sometimes I think we don’t appreciate the richness of the democracy we have on this island.
It comes home to me most when voting in Westminster elections. Like a lot of people, I tend to find myself putting my X next to a name I know won’t be elected.
There is a lot of internal debate before walking into the polling station. Do I vote with my heart? What if I make a bargain and vote for my second or third favourite candidate, in the hope they can scrape in? Do I just stay at home, if the outcome seems inevitable?
I’m not alone, either; turnout in Westminster elections is consistently lowest in the north. Maybe when you’re used to voting in elections where you can – to use the local expression – “vote till you boke”, it becomes harder to choke down the nausea when making one choice, tinged with compromise.
It’s worse again with a referendum – certainly it was with Brexit, when public debate veered completely off course, and we found ourselves voting on a wing and a prayer for an undefined outcome. When the vote was done, recriminations lasted for years, and still the outcome shifts like mist.
But Brexit means Brexit, and we had to accept whatever the government of the day take that to mean. Meanwhile, south of the border, people are evidently unafraid of telling the government – by thumping referendum defeat, if necessary – to go back to the drawing board.
So, while opposition parties and many voters are decrying the elevation of Simon Harris to the position of taoiseach and calling for a new election, they should pause to count their blessings. Harris may not have stood for election as party leader, but at least there is not a race to the absolute bottom of the barrel as every Fine Gael member and their cousin gets a go at the helm, unlike the array of Tories who have had a turn – one outlasted by a lettuce.
And at least Varadkar went of his own volition, rather than being pushed. He even had the grace to appear self-reflective, rather than angry or bitter. More importantly, though, another Dáil election is coming within a year, and because of the voting system there is a real choice to be made by every voter.
Unlike the general election, unlike the election looming in the United States, nobody is forced to compromise what they want to achieve the least-bad outcome. On both sides of the border, when an election rolls round, we have several parties to choose from. We can list our preferences too, meaning less need for hedging our electoral bets.
Independents have a real chance of getting elected. Coalitions – sometimes unlikely ones – are the norm, meaning that even smaller parties get a chance to prove their mettle.
Meanwhile, the 2010 Westminster election caused widespread panic in London, commentators and MPs alike fearing chronic instability. As much as I disagreed with just about every choice that government made, it was the most stable one Westminster has seen since.
Love or loathe the outcome, the people elected to the Dáil and to Stormont are more representative of voters’ wishes than other electoral systems can produce. People can vote with their hearts. We’d be poorer without it, too.
Whether it’s Jim Allister, Claire Sugden or Gerry Carroll, the more marginal voices that would never make it in a first-past-the-post race bring colour to proceedings, but they also bring accountability, asking difficult questions of those who hold ministerial power.
I’ve lived, worked and voted on both sides of the border, and sometimes I think we don’t appreciate the richness of the democracy we have on this island
Varadkar may have read the writing on the wall and left while the going is good but, in the process, he has fired the starting pistol on a long election process.
This year will be an election bonanza for the political nerds. For some of us, voting will feel like a reluctant duty, but the Dáil election uses a system that allows and encourages voters to express themselves fully.
That’s something to celebrate.