Ireland’s president-elect is supporter of a UN Parliamentary Assembly

30. October 2011

On Saturday it was officially announced that Michael D. Higgins has won the presidential elections in Ireland. The peace activist, sociologist and former minister of culture with the Irish Labour Party will succeed Mary McAleese as ninth president of Ireland. According to the Irish Times he said that his mandate was "for an inclusive citizenship which is about equality,

President-elect Michael D. Higgins with wife Sabina
Image: Irish Labour Party

participation and respect in a creative society, creative and excellent in everything we Irish do; making an Irishness to be proud of in a real republic.”

In April 2007, Mr. Higgins, then Spokesperson on Foreign Affairs of the Irish Labour party, was one of the initial signatories of an international “Appeal for the Establishment of a Parliamentary Assembly at the United Nations.” Another signatory at that time was Eamon Gilmore, today Ireland’s foreign minister.

In 2009, Mr. Higgins also endorsed a “Call for global democratic oversight of international financial and economic institutions” that was published on the occasion of a G-20 summit in London. According to this statement, a UN Parliamentary Assembly “should be an important part of the renewed system of international financial and economic governance.”

“We wholeheartedly congratulate Mr. Higgins on his election,” said Andreas Bummel, the Secretary-General of the Campaign for a UN Parliamentary Assembly, who was in Washington D.C. last week for talks.

Supporters of the Campaign include various former heads of state or government and foreign ministers, among them Václav Havel of the Czech Republic.

Top image: Michael D. Higgins after the announcement of his election, Source: Irish Labour Party, Creative Commons BY-ND 2.0

Tags: Ireland