Low polls not just a matter of apathy

One thing, at least, about today's local and European elections is entirely predictable. The turnout will be low. Somewhere between 30 and 50 per cent of those entitled to vote won't go within roaring distance of the polling booth. And this is, or should be, at least as important a fact about contemporary Irish politics as the names of the successful candidates or the policies they have pledged to follow. Yet, if is discussed at all, it will be filed under "apathy", and apathy is hardly worth getting excited about.

But there is a lot more to it than mere indifference. In the last few weeks, I've received quite a few letters from people anxious to explain why they will not be voting today. Running through them all are feelings that are anything but apathetic: anger, disgust, bewilderment. If there were such a thing as passionate apathy, these people would have it.

One letter, for example, is from a Sligo man in his late 50s. He doesn't fit the stereotype of the non-voter, the callow youth too spoiled and solipsistic to give a damn about the public world. This man is a retired teacher, active in his local community. He has never failed to vote before. He knows all about politics.

And he's still going to stay at home. He's sickened by all the stuff that's coming out of the tribunals, frustrated by the fact that the system never seems to change. And this, too, upsets him. He can't understand how things have got to a point where people like himself, interested, concerned, alert to the wider world, have been alienated from the democratic process.

From other letters and casual conversations, I get the feeling that this man is not alone. As well as the first-time voters today, there will be a wholly unrecognised phenomenon: first-time non-voters.

It's easy, in a general way, to see what's going on. The mass political party is in decline all around the western world. Participative democracy came out of a certain kind of society. People thought of themselves in terms of collective identities: class, nation, religion and political parties won allegiance by representing some combination of these mighty forces. Now, because we live in an increasingly complex and globalised world, because social ties have weakened and our lives have become more fragmented, the pull of party loyalty is inevitably weaker.

There is, too, the question of antagonism. Hatred of the bosses, the Blueshirts, the commies, the diehards, or whoever, has always been a powerful incentive to get out and vote. The pleasure of seeing the other side lose has been at least as attractive as the joy of victory. Proportional representation has added the special gratification of being able to vote, not just number one, but, if you're lucky enough to be in a large constituency, number 17, or even, blissfully, number 23.

PARADOXICALLY, one of the things that has weakened the pull of democracy is that political hatred has become more generalised. Instead of hating some politicians on the other side, people tend to hate all politicians. While the old antagonism was a reason to vote, the new one is a reason not to vote.

Related to this, of course, is the issue of consensus. In most western democracies, major political parties have discovered that the way to take power is to appeal, not to your own supporters, who will vote for you anyway, but to the supporters of your enemies. The result, naturally, is that large political parties have come to resemble each other as closely as Dolly the sheep resembles Dolly the sheep. Is it any wonder that many intelligent people either don't see the point of voting, or feel so deeply betrayed that they refuse to exercise what they see as a non-choice?

But while all of these factors are important, they don't fully account for the current anti-political mood in Ireland. For that, we have to look at more local and more specific forces.

We have to ask how the Irish political system has responded to all of these changes. And we have to answer that it has responded very badly.

We've had, in the Republic, two contradictory impulses working on the political system over the past decade. One is a drive for partnership. The idea that politics is, in the profoundest sense, an act of negotiation, a continual process of dialogue in which different interests and demands are mediated, has been at the core of the two great developments on the island. It created, through the various social partnership arrangements, the conditions for the economic boom. And it led to a peace process in Northern Ireland that is, for all its continuing difficulties, a stunning example of what politicians can achieve.

But, side-by-side with this new culture of partnership, we've had a political system that simply hasn't got the point. If you're going to have a partnership culture, with a consequent emphasis on consensus and reduction in party antagonism, you have to change the way politics operates. If your appeal for votes is not based on the Civil War, or the way the family always voted, or the defence of traditional values, or the construction of the workers' republic, it has to be about something else. And the system hasn't quite figured out what the something else is.

What it is, at the very least, is a combination of three elements: trust, competence and inclusiveness. If everything is negotiated, the people who do the deals have to be trustworthy. If the negotiations are directed towards specific achievements, the people charged with making those things happen have to be able to do so. And if the governing idea is that everyone has a stake in the process, then large sections of society can't be left behind.

What has actually happened? Trust has been shattered, not just by the revelation that the State was run for long periods as a private business enterprise, but by the shifty, devious response of the Government to those revelations. Basic competence, across a whole range of issues, has been in short supply. The hepatitis C scandal forced us to question whether the State is capable of fulfilling even its most primitive duty: that of not endangering the lives of its citizens. The ability, indeed the willingness, of the State to apply the law without fear or favour has been deeply compromised. Basic public projects - think of the Luas in Dublin - have been stuck in a rut. And large sections of society patently have been left behind.

And yes, it's wrong to blame all politicians for these failures. And yes, failure to vote, even for the best reasons, will only make things worse.

Just because you opt out of politics, politics won't opt out of your life. But politicians have to understand that there is more going on than the mere apathy of those who are too ignorant or too self-satisfied to vote. Some of the people who will stay at home today are among the brightest, most passionate, most committed members of the electorate. Unless the winners in today's contests see getting elected as the beginning, not the end, of their real work, they will find themselves busy, well-paid but utterly redundant.