Maria Steen Maria Steen was blocked from the presidential election because the political establishment feared that she would win the arguments and potentially the presidential election. Maria is a bright, intelligent and articulate woman who would have made a big impact. More importantly she has a backbone and will stand up for what she believes in. That is a rare commodity in Irish politics.
The threshold for nomination for the presidential election was set in 1937 when Ireland was a two and a half party state. The political landscape has changed radically since then. Ireland is far more diverse politically and the grip of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael has collapsed.
Yet the system stills gives those two parties inordinate power over who makes it on to the ballot. A system to filter candidates is necessary but the presidential election is an outlier. Strictly enforced it pretty much rules out a challenger from outside the establishment. For council, Dáil and European election the threshold for nomination is far lower. At a particular point in the 2011 presidential election David Norris was polling 19% in the polls but could still not get an nomination. That’s shockingly antidemocratic.
Evolved
The process has evolved somewhat recently as political parties started to facilitate their councillors to either vote for a non-party candidate or abstain. This facilitated a more diverse suite of candidates that better reflected society. But everything changed in this election. FG issued a diktat to councillors that they must block candidates. FF’s direction to councillors was more nuanced but reading between the lines councillors knew where they stood.
There is a narrative circulating that Maria Steen did not make it on to the ballot because she started too late. This is not true. Gareth Sheridan and Nick Delahanty and others spent months talking to councillors and were blocked to. Maria was talking to independent TDs and smaller parties for weeks. The initial problem was these TDs were being approached by a range of different candidates and everybody was waiting for others to make a decision. Indeed, one party stated that, ‘when someone gets 16 nominations, talk to us’.
Our view was that if we want to change Ireland for the better, we should not stand idly by, we should pull every lever possible to make that change happen”
This meant that no candidate could get momentum. At that stage we in Aontú organised the selection caucus to help crystalise a decision. This had never been done before in Leinster House, but it worked really well. 7 independents along with Aontú’s 3 Oireachtas members agreed to participate, and Maria came through with flying colours.
At last Maria had momentum. Maria continued to canvass the remaining TDs and Senators. Its important to state that Maria’s campaign has always been independent and fully sperate from Aontú and we only ever sought to help her selection. Our view was that if we want to change Ireland for the better, we should not stand idly by, we should pull every lever possible to make that change happen.
I continued to lobby TDs and happily 3 other TDs and Senators agreed to sign the nomination papers most notably Michael Healy Rae and Marian Harkin. These deserve special thanks, as they are government Ministers, they risked some pushback from their colleagues.
However, at this stage time was running out. Independent Ireland, Danny Healy Rae and Aubrey McCarthy signed on the Tuesday and Wednesday. This was very welcome. I do not wish to take away from their support, but if they signed earlier, it would have helped more. All that was missing to bridge the gap was 2 TDs or Senators.
Views
Noel Grealish and Seán Canny are two TDs that have very similar views to Maria Steen. They receive thousands of votes from citizens because of this fact. Both would not answer the phone to me until the last few days and ultimately refused to sign. This is really disappointing and hard to fathom.
Three senators: Michael McDowell, Victor Boyan and Gerard Craughwell also refused to answer phones or engage with myself or the campaign right up to the last minute. Victor Boyan and Gerard Craughwell are elected by councillors across the country. They made dozens of phone calls to these councillors last January seeking Seanad votes for themselves. Yet when dozens of these same councillors were phoning them, urging them to support Maria, they would not take their calls. Its common decency to answer a phone call and just answer honestly, yes, no or maybe. For most of these last 4 weeks that did not happen. There was some ignorant social media commentary that was focused on some senators. This was wrong and should not of happened. But it had nothing to do with Maria’s campaign. Also making a decision on such an important issue, either way, because of ignorant social media messages does not make sense.
Political parties have put narrow party interest over and above the interests of society”
Michael McDowell too was unable to communicate directly with Maria for some reason. There is no doubt that he has different opinions to Maria, but he was close enough to share a platform on the Lawyers for No campaign in the last referendums. Every TD and Senator have a right to refuse a nomination but citizens also have the right to hold them to account.
We are now faced with the shortest ballot and the narrowest field in 35 years. There are 2 government candidates who are very similar and Catherine Connolly. Many people have no one to vote for. Hundreds of thousands of people will have no voice in this campaign. Election campaigns are about the competition of ideas and values. In a healthy democracy the best ideas will percolate to the top and there will be progress. This wont happen in this election because certain ideas and values have been blocked. In a polarised world it is up to political leaders to show that the political system works. This is not happening here. Political parties have put narrow party interest over and above the interests of society.
We in Aontú will continue represent a growing section of Irish society. With new members and elected reps, we will make sure that this never happens again.