On Friday, I will be voting for Heather Humphreys to be president. While most people have decried a substandard election campaign, I will vote enthusiastically for Humphreys. After four decades of egotists who have sought to “stretch” the role of the office, I want someone more conventional and, dare I say it, more conservative. I’d like someone who can subordinate themselves to the office. The last thing I want is another grandstanding egomaniac from Galway who might trigger a constitutional crisis. It doesn’t look as if I am going to get my wish.
Catherine Connolly, the Ba’ath Party candidate, looks set to sweep the election. Ok, she’s not really running for the Ba’ath Party, the Arab socialist organisation which featured Saddam Hussein and the Assads (father and son) among its leaders. But Connolly did conduct a very convivial visit to the Ba’athist regime of civil war torn Syria and she is being backed by a loose Irish coalition of ultra-socialists and ultra-nationalists. Despite having political features that make her totally unsupportable to me, latest polls indicate that Connolly may be elected on the first count.
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