The Irish
lower house of Parliament, Dáil Éireann, is elected by the STV
system—proportional representation by means of the Single Transferable Vote.
This relatively unusual system owes its origins to the circumstances of the Republic of Ireland’s achievement of independence in
1922. The departing rulers, the British, wanted some form of PR in order to
protect the Protestant minority, while the new state’s political elite favoured
PR in principle. With neither having much awareness of PR list systems, STV was
adopted by agreement as the electoral system and has remained the electoral
system ever since.
The Dáil is
of central importance in the Irish political system. It elects the government,
which needs to retain majority support in the Dáil in order to survive. Much
less important is the presidency, although, unusually for a parliamentary
system, the president is directly elected. Elections for the presidency take
place under the Alternative Vote (AV) system.
The 166
members of the Dáil are elected from around 40 constituencies, each returning
three, four or five members. Voting is straightforward: voters merely indicate
their favoured candidate (by writing ‘1’ beside that candidate’s name on the
ballot paper), and can go on to indicate their second and third choices and so
on in the same way. Voters can rank candidates not only within but also across
parties. Although most vote along party lines, it is not necessary to do so,
and some vote along geographical lines, that is, they give their highest
preferences, regardless of party, to the candidates from their own local area.
The counting process, especially the distribution of ‘surplus’ votes, looks
complicated to the uninitiated, but it is worth emphasizing that the voters do
not have to be familiar with all the details; they need only to know how to
cast their vote and to be satisfied that the counting process is ‘fair’ and
transparent.
The
electoral system is entrenched in the constitution and consequently cannot be
changed without a referendum. On two occasions (1959 and 1968) the largest
party, Fianna Fáil, instigated a referendum to replace STV by the British FPTP
system, using the argument each time that any kind of PR was likely to create a
problem of unstable coalition government. The proposed change was rejected by
the voters on each occasion, by margins of 52 per cent to 48 per cent in 1959,
and 61 per cent to 39 per cent in 1968.
On the
basis of the criterion of stable government, anyone evaluating the record of
STV in the Republic
of Ireland would not, in
fact, see its performance as a problem. Since the mid-1940s, governments (both
coalition and single-party) have lasted three, four or five years, the only
exception being a short-lived period of instability in the early 1980s. The
voters, through their ranking of candidates of different parties, are able to
indicate their wishes regarding potential coalition partners for their
preferred party.
STV has
generally delivered highly proportional outcomes, with Fianna Fáil receiving
only a modest ‘bonus’ (around 48 per cent of the seats for 45 per cent of the
votes at elections over the period 1945–92). However, the small size of the
electoral districts (four seats per constituency on average) creates the
potential for the largest party to reap a benefit if it can attract second- and
third-preference votes from supporters of other parties. In 2002 the least
proportional results ever, Fianna Fáil won 41 per cent of the votes and 49 per
cent of the seats.
The system
continues to allow representation to small parties and to independents, 13 of
whom were elected in 2002. While many PR systems enable small parties to win
seats in the Parliament, STV seems to give an unusual opportunity to
independent candidates to do the same because of its essentially
candidate-centred rather than party-centred nature.
Much of the
praise and criticism of STV in the Republic
of Ireland hinges on the
same factor, namely the power it gives to voters to choose among candidates of
the same party. This creates intense intra-party competition, especially among
candidates of Fianna Fáil, which nominates between two and four candidates in
each constituency. Statistics show that more incumbent Fianna Fáil MPs lose
their seat to a running-mate than to a candidate of another party.
Critics argue that, as a result, incumbents become over-active at constituency level in
order to curry favour with the voters and do not spend enough time on politics
at national level, for example, on scrutinizing the government or discussing
legislation in committees. They argue that this has an adverse effect on the
calibre of Irish parliamentarians (in that individuals who could make a
contribution at national level are discouraged by the likely casework load they
would have to discharge if elected) and that it leads to short-termism and
undue regard for localism in government thinking. They suggest that internal
party competition for votes may lead to divided, incohesive political parties.
The
defenders of the system, in contrast, see voters’ opportunity to choose among
candidates of their party as a virtue. They argue that it allows the voters to
replace incumbents by more able and more active newcomers and that, at a time
of decreasing interest in conventional politics, this gives MPs a strong
incentive to keep in close contact with the voters and thus fulfil the role of
linking citizens to the political system. They maintain that there is no
evidence that Irish MPs are of lower calibre than those elsewhere and that the Republic of Ireland’s recent record of impressive
economic growth shows that there cannot be too much wrong with the behaviour of
governments. They also point out that the Irish political parties are extremely
cohesive and disciplined in their behaviour in Parliament, with no factions or
recognizable subgroups.
In 2002 an
all-party parliamentary committee considered the arguments for and against
changing the system. It concluded that the public was strongly attached to STV,
that a change to any other system would reduce the power of the individual
voter, and that some of the alleged failings of the political system for which
critics blamed STV were caused by other factors. As this conclusion indicates,
there is no significant body of opinion in favour of amending or replacing the
existing system.
Any
evaluation of STV in the Republic
of Ireland needs to take
account of the characteristics of the country. It is a small country in terms
of both area and population, and the ratio of MPs to population (about 1 :
20,000) is relatively high by international standards. This may foster closer
links between MPs and their constituents, regardless of the electoral system,
than are likely in a larger country. In addition, the Republic of Ireland
is a prosperous, highly educated society where the political system as a whole
is well established and is universally regarded as legitimate. Irish society
does not have any significant cleavages (for example, ethnic, linguistic or
religious).
For all
these reasons we need to be careful about drawing firm conclusions about how
STV would operate in other contexts. We can, though, say that there is no sign
that the electorate in the Republic
of Ireland would like to
replace it by any other system.
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