Is Brian Cowen Really A Democrat?
Brian Cowen's democratic credentials are becoming increasingly suspect with the passing of every day. This is a strange and worrying development for the leader of a government that has a tenuous hold on power to say the least.
As a nation we need a committed democrat leading the country. One that is committed to democracy as a philosophy and not just on his own terms.
His version of democracy appears to be tempered by what suites him personally and what will benefit the Fianna Fail party.
5 reasons why Brian Cowens democratic credentials are suspect:
1) His ill advised quotation where he said:
“As long as I am running this Government, I will run the Government as I see fit, as I believe it, based on my philosophy.”
That image of him, angry, shouting, stabbing the air with his finger, is one that is hard to reconcile with the image of a committed democrat. It shows a great disregard to his colleagues, his party, the members of the Oireachtas and above all the electorate. It demonstrates just how out of touch he is with reality and how little respect he has for the very people who gave him his mandate to govern in the first place. Not a very democratic position to take!
2) His insane and blinkered insistence on continuing with social partnership as a means to rescue the economic situation.
I was on a Marion Finnucan show in February 2009 (Listen To Show) where (Gerard Howlin) a former advisor to Brian Cowen publicly admitted that the social partnership process involved primarily the leaders of the public sector unions and some senior civil servants meeting to decide policy. The relevant minister usually DID NOT even attend such meetings. Why on earth not? Surely this is what they were elected for, not to be sitting in an office waiting for a result. I believe that the cabinet were elected to be part of a decision making process and not just to ratify the decisions made by others. They are abdicating their responsibilities in this regard. They are letting the people down.
So what Social Partnership is in effect is a meeting of people who have not been elected by the people deciding on public policy. Not exactly democratic is it?
3) A Fianna Fail party led by Bertie Ahern and the Greens were elected as a coalition in 2007 to govern the country.
Since then Bertie resigned as party leader (To avoid more scrutiny into his personal finances perhaps?) and Brian Cowen was elected leader of Fianna Fail and hence became Taosieach.
Every subsequent opinion poll has demonstrated that the public do NOT want him running the country.
Of late the opinion polls show that he does not even have the support of his own party. Yet he continues to insist that he will remain as Taoiseach and has a constitutional right to do so.
He is hiding behind the constitution on this one as he clearly does not have a moral or democratic right to remain on as Taoiseach without being ratified by the electorate. He was told this in no uncertain terms in the 2009 local elections.
4) He has excluded large portions of his cabinet from the decision making process and seems to rely exclusively on some very suspect advisors, civil servants and on the very unfortunate Brian Lenihan.
He did rely on Mary Coughlan also but obviously realises that he has promoted her far beyond her level of competence and has marginalised her also. His lack of regard for even his own party members does not instill confidence in his commitment to the democratic process.
5) Given the very clear message given in the 2009 local elections Brian Cowen continues to insist that his mandate to govern came from the 2007 general election and he must abide by and respect that.
All well and good you might think until you realise that he was happy to overthrow another democratic result from 2008 (Lisbon) and go back to the people when it suited him.
Lets be clear here. I am fully in favour of a YES Vote to Lisbon 2 and fully recommend you vote yes too.
What I am trying to illustrate is that An Taosieach is happy to manipulate the so called democratic mandate to meet his own ends. Once again a very suspect commitment to democracy to say the least.
This government is very like the Bush administration in its last years in the US. It recognizes it does not have the support of the people, cannot implement radical policy or instill real change as it cannot rely on public support and is limping nervously on to the end of its term.
We need a general election to let the people decide. Given the new order in which we find ourselves the 2007 general election was a lifetime ago.
Perhaps Brian Cowen will be reelected as taoiseach, if so well and good.
He will demonstrate that he has the support of the people, is fully committed to democracy and will have five full years to implement the necessary change.
What is he afraid of?
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