Different views can and should co-exist in the complex times that we live in

Government formation is often messy after the PR system of voting — but this doesn’t make it bad, writes Conor Skehan

THE great 19th century statesman, Otto von Bismarck, who masterminded the unification of Germany in 1871, is credited with the quotation that “To retain respect for sausages and laws, one must not watch them in the making”.

Like laws and sausages, governments are good and necessary things, yet they originate in ways that are not readily admired by purists.

Government formation in countries that use the proportional representation voting system can be particularly messy, because it often results in a coalition. The ensuing negotiations of a programme for government usually ends as a mash-up of the promises made by each party during the election.

This weekend, as a new Government is formed, many people will be holding their noses. Purists and populists hate the complexity, compromise and often contradictory results of the coalition governments that result from the PR system. Different versions of this form of election are used in 87 countries throughout the world. Ireland’s version — the single transferable vote — is widely regarded as the most advanced version of PR, though unfounded fear of its complexity means that it is only used in this form by Ireland and Malta.

Proportional representation aims to be the fairest system of selecting a government, mainly because it produces a legislature composed of numbers that accurately reflect the support expressed by the voting population. It is the exact opposite of the first-pastthe-post system used in most of the UK (except Northern Ireland) and the USA.

Contradictorily, the official motto of the United States is the phrase E pluribus unum — the words appear on all US coinage, summarising the fundamental aspiration of that country, to create unity out of diversity.

The phrase — meaning ‘one out of many’ is from the ancient Latin language while the concept itself is from Ancient Greece.

This transcendental concept recurs throughout human history, whenever people try to make a society that is more than its selfish parts. It is the summary of all our striving for our better selves.

‘Me Feiner’ is one of those useful Irish phrases that sums up the selfish attitude that is the opposite of the generosity and pluralism that has made us continue to pursue e pluribus unum.

Ireland is a very good example of the idealism and goodwill that can underpin the initial adoption of proportional representation. Contemporary nationalists have successfully stoked amnesia about the generosity and idealism of the founders of our State. In the 1916 Proclamation, our founders explicitly resolved to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and of all its parts, cherishing all the children of the nation equally, and oblivious to the differences, carefully fostered by an alien government, which have divided a minority from the majority in the past.

Our nation’s founders went far beyond these high-minded words about not dividing a minority from the majority. Their flag, the very symbol of our nation, includes the orange of unionism; they put in place a Senate to provide the reassurance and safeguard against the oppression of the Anglo-Irish, but most fundamentally they put in place a system of voting that ensured representation to any and all minority points of view.

Attempts have been made to unravel many parts of this early idealism. Fianna Fail tried to get rid of PR twice, in 1959 and 1968 — but both referendums failed — the Irish voter’s wisdom should not be underestimated.

Many seemingly progressive causes seem to be underpinned by an intolerance for dissenters, who are condemned by the name-calling identity politics of left and right. That growing pejorative single-issue parts of our society use cat-call words to praise or damn. Words like woke, denier, Remainer, boomer, alarmist are used to divide the world into believers and dissenters.

Populists play on emotions by using the threat of a universal, existential crisis to justify the adoption of only one approach — their approach. Hence social justice activists claim to speak ‘for the many, not the few’ or ‘for the needy, not the greedy’.

Environmental groups, similarly threaten/promise ‘Extinction

Rebellion’ in an attempt to gain attention.

‘My world, my way’ seems to sum up this attitude that paints any other point of view as being contrary to the common good, often going further by advocating the abandonment of or rebellion against social norms or structures to support their invocation of a crisis or emergency.

But proportional representation can counter populism by supporting the pluralism in which differing views can co-exist.

The negotiation of a programme for government between parties and individuals of differing values and aspirations can be a very good thing. It facilitates an early establishment of common ground as well as highlighting areas where compromise is very difficult. This is where the squeamishness comes into play. Negotiating parties, propelled by proximity to power and the opportunity to implement their ideas, must also be reserved, lest they leave their followers behind and lose their mandate.

This difficulty has the great advantage of pre-empting time-wasting and argumentative conflict during the life of a government. This means that the resolution of these initial difficulties, no matter how intense and bitter, is the price of subsequent national stability.

Many younger readers may be unaware of how extremely different some of Ireland’s earlier coalition bedfellows have been. For instance, in 1994 Fine Gael’s John Bruton and Labour’s Dick Spring formed the ‘Rainbow Coalition’ that included Democratic Left — a party that had only shortly beforehand been a communist-like party with strong links to the Soviet Union.

Many in Fine Gael and Labour found this very hard to stomach. Yet this deal with the devil produced Ireland’s first anti-poverty strategy — a valued, substantial and lasting implementation of that party’s core values. Great good can come from such compromises.

Seen in this light, coalition is an inevitable and potentially healthy result, because the greatest number of points of view are accommodated — however diverse. Accommodating difference and facilitating peaceful co-existence is surely the most fundamental objective of any good society. Finding a place for everyone is like a seating plan for that awkward uncle at a family wedding. Everybody fits somewhere, there are no losers, nobody is left behind.

This weekend, the act of squaring circles begins, this takes time and patience and is not pretty, it never is. But it is surely worthwhile. It is arguable that pluralist structures are an unavoidable necessity in an increasingly complex world of many nationalities, beliefs and values.

We need not look very far to be reminded of the divisiveness and ultimate waste of a winner-takesall approach. Everybody who is left behind is a wasted vote, a wasted idea, a wasted talent and a lessening of our capacity to be the best of ourselves — all of ourselves.

Let us encourage negotiators, on all sides, ‘Get over it, get on with it, get it done!’

‘Coalition is an inevitable and potentially healthy result’