A Different View: Well done to all who did their bit for democracy
The dust has settled on the Galway West Bye-Election and while Fine Gael took the spoils, others will drill down for consolation in their performances or reflect on their progression up through the pack. But what is most astonishing about all of this is not the aftermath; it’s the very beginning.
Because the turn-out in Galway West was exactly 44 per cent of the electorate.
In other words, just over two out of every five people entitled to vote could even be bothered to go to their local polling station to exercise their democratic right. Conversely almost three in every five couldn’t be bothered.
And while some will have had a really good excuse – illness, living away from Galway during the working week, lack of transport or just things that got in the way – I’d hazard a guess that most of them just didn’t work up the enthusiasm.
I’ll also have a wild stab at this; they are most likely to be the people who have most to say about the state of the country when they hide behind pseudonyms on social media – a plague on all their houses, sort of stuff.
The statistics would show that any one of their votes wouldn’t have changed a thing in Galway West this time; the closest a small few votes came to making a difference was when the City’s Mayor Mike Cubbard was eliminated with just twelve votes less than Fianna Fáil’s Cillian Keane.
But historically – admittedly not often – just a handful of votes have determined who won the seat.
Ironically, the closest call in Galway involved the woman who had vacated this seat for the very good reason that she is now our President – and the man who won it on Sunday night.
Because back in 2011, Catherine Connolly lost out on the final seat to Seán Kyne by just 17 votes – and that caused a marathon four-day full recount before that margin was officially confirmed.
Back in Dublin South-Central in 1982, the one-time Lord Mayor of Dublin Ben Briscoe won his seat by a single vote – a margin that admittedly grew a little after a number of recounts. Former Labour leader Dick Spring held onto his Dáil seat in the 1987 Election by a margin of just four votes in Kerry North constituency – again after a recount.
And there are plenty of examples where the gap between victory and defeat was 20 or 30 votes – so every vote does count. But even that isn’t the point.
The point is that this should not be seen as a democratic right as much as a democratic duty – and if you fail to vote, there should be a price to be paid.
It may be hyperbolic, but wouldn’t the people of Russia love to have an actual say in their democratic process, rather than a fait accompli where an opposition politician who poses even a hint of a threat is imprisoned or poisoned, or both?
Think of the parts of the world without a democracy – and remember too that people fought and died so that we could live in a sovereign nation.
And, yes, there are a thousand other things you could be doing in Galway of a Friday in May.
The fantastic Bell X1, for example, did a pop-up gig outside Matt O’Flaherty’s on Williams Street at lunchtime to promote their Galway Arts Festival gig – a real treat for those of us privileged to be there.
But somehow we managed that and still found the five minutes it takes to vote, so that we had our fun and still played our part in the democratic process.
Equally, hats off to those who stood for election – perhaps most of all the five candidates eliminated on the first count because their collective vote wasn’t as big as the person in sixth last.
You have to pay to contest an election and no matter how off the wall others might consider your platform or your agenda or your ideology, at least you had the courage of your convictions to put your name in front of the people to let them decide.
This isn’t about who won or lost, because that is the decision of the people – at least those who bothered to come out and vote – and it is utterly irrelevant whether or not you agree with it.
Noel Thomas recognised that by manfully and graciously offering his congratulations to Seán Kyne in the seconds after the result of the final count was announced – just as Seán Kyne had accepted his fate in the last General Election.
Every one of the 17 had the courage to put their name on the ballot paper and they knocked on doors to ask for votes, taking the plaudits or the criticisms – or in many cases, finding no one willing to open the door – as they came at them.
It’s for the parties themselves to analyse what to take from this because there are positives to be gleaned for many; platforms to be developed for the next time out; work to be done to solidify and expand on their performance this time.
They deserve a better response from the electorate, whether it’s to approve or reject them – because really it’s only when you vote that you can legitimately give out about what has or hasn’t happened.
Instead you have the people who were on social media this week, hiding behind some cloak of anonymity to say things about some of the candidates that, if you said in a newspaper or on the street, would land you in the libel courts or on a charge of incitement to hatred.
Some of them may have voted; again the integrity of the ballot box means we aren’t entitled to know who did or didn’t go to the bother.
But I’d hazard a guess that those who are making the most noise spent Friday sitting on the couch or on the fence, when they could have made their point by voting for someone – or going down the ballot paper to number 17 to send out their message to someone whose agenda they have no time for.
So congrats instead to all who stood and well done on your performance. You may not have won, but it is your commitment that greases the wheels of our democratic process.
You had the conviction to get off the fence.