A Riddle: Is An Opposition Really An Opposition If It Conspires With Govt. To Cancel an Election?

national | rights, freedoms and repression | news report Monday September 27, 2004 18:14 by poolfeedjunkie

What are RTE, The Greens and Labour so afraid of? Ideas? Debate?

Democracy?

It seems that after some shilly-shallying The Greens may be poised to decide that there is a need for a debate on the Presidency only if that debate is led from the opposition benches by them. A source has told this freeporter that Eamonn Ryan stated to them earlier today that the parliamentary party have already had a meeting at which they took the decision that Vincent Salafia would not be recieving any nominations from the 'Greenies'. Their Press Office does not know as yet of such a meeting having taken place and stressed that a 'formal approach' to the party from Vincent Salafia has not taken place. They stressed that as far as they were aware The Green Party had no fixed definite position as yet on their attitude to nominating him.

Meanwhile Dana who is in pretty much the exact same position as Vincent Salafia with regard to getting any public support from TD's or Senators of County Councils is getting wall to wall coverage on RTE while Salafia is getting the treatment from their newsroom and current affairs division usually accorded to a bad case of the 'nits'. One Journalist there last week said this was a 'policy' type of thing - Dana gets the wall to wall treatment 'because she has run for election before'. The policy as stated by their press office is that unless a potential candidate had at least one TD or Senator nominating them they will recieve no coverage - good bad or indifferent - from RTE. Dana is treated as an exception because she has 'form'. The press office also stated that the issue in general is not considered sufficiently newsworthy when such stories as the unresolved kidnapping in Iraq are ongoing. They also stated that the newsroom had recieved up to 100 e-mails to do with the presidential election and again repeated the line from last week that according to the newsroom there were several other potential candidates besides Vincent Salafia seeking nominations. The Press Office could only name two - Luke (Ming) Flanagan, a County Councillor from Roscommon (who is not answering his many phones leading me to believe he has dropped out of the nominations beauty contest) and an unnamed individual who is a member of the National Men's Council.

The RTE press office stressed that this is not a written down policy but is a kind of fuzzy guideline in place due to the current pressure and fluctuating newsworthiness of various other stories in circulation at present. This sounds like a bit of major gatekeeping verging on outright anti-democratic censorship to me coming from the same organisation that entrusted their footage covering President Bush's arrival (and associated protests at the Airport in Shannon) to a private company who they claim doiwn to the ground not to know the name of - a company who co-incidentally were hired by the Department of Foreign Affairs to provide pool feed coverage of W's arrival to the American television networks. Unsurprisingly all footage of the protests at Shannon on that evening were culled from the pool feed before it reached the US networks. Oh what a lovely war. Censorship is the up and coming thing in Ireland. If I had some money I'd bet on that particular State censorship stock soaring if it is allowed to by the citizenry.

Oh what a lovely democracy - Labour, Greens (not definite yet), Sinn Fein, FG and RTE (by the just about plausibly deniable sin of omission) all lining up behind Bertie's Mary as the first real chance of a national debate and election where Tweedle-dum and Tweedle dee civil war political lines are consigned to the past is flushed down the toilet by a cowardly set of self regarding opposition parties content with putting dreams of power tomorrow ahead of the battle of political ideas today and ahead of the constitutional right of citizens to vote for their President.

The Labour press office line is that the Labour Party opinion was and is that once Eamonn Ryan pulled out - the process was finished bar the shouting. No whip in operation but an expectation of closed ranks on this from the Press Officer I spoke to. Lovely - It seems that the Labour Party are only too happy to close the process on behalf of the Country. They know the arithmetic and they should and deserve to take the lions share of the blame that is richly deserved for such a cynical suspension of Democratic processes.

As a party they have denied the public a debate about the direction of what to all intents and purposes has the appearances of a One - Party (with an Anti-Democratic Rump) State. Debate if they read up on democratic theory is necessary in a democracy for the benefit and enlightenment and empowerment of the citizenry - it is not for the benefit of the Labour Party. Truth is that Pet Rabbit wants power before he goes over the hill and any wishy-washy stuff about a contest of ideas - the importance of debate in a healthy democracy - consistency - principles - is not going to get in his way.

The same Press Officer said the decision that the matter was 'now closed' came from 'The Party Leader, The Parliamentary Party and the NEC'. Wow. Two opposition parties who are eyeballing each other as potential Government partners (change the country, new dawn of fairness, transparency blah blah blah) can't come up with a single candidate inside or outside their parties and will conspire to knowingly subvert democracy if they feel it is in their Interests.

Michael D. seems somehow to deserve the last word on the whole rotten can of worms. He was courteous enough to take a call about this while waiting from news from Iraq. He said Vincent Salafia was a 'good person who he knew from his campaigning at Carrickmines Castle'. He said he wasn't in a position to sign anything for anyone and that there 'wasn't enough people anyway to back Salafia'. With regard to RTE's coverage of Dana in comparison to Mr. Salafia he said it was 'completely unfair' and that 'He is entitled to the same level of coverage as Dana'. His final answer was revealing. The Question - 'Did the Labour Party take a decision not to back anyone else after Eamonn Ryan pulled out?' The Answer - 'No not formally. It may have been discussed at various different levels'. Somebody better tell the Press Office that if Pet Rabbit is taking formal decisions for the whole party without informing them he is going to get found out.