When Enda Kenny, the new Irish prime minister, pleaded at a European Union summit last month for more lenient bailout terms, his fellow leaders derided one of his arguments: that he had been overwhelmingly elected on a promise to get a better deal for his country. So what? We all have elections, they said. In a club of 27 democracies, with an endless succession of national and regional ballots, electoral calculations inevitably colour decision-making. Yet domestic politics is now proving particularly debilitating to governments, whether conservative or socialist, northern or southern, creditor or debtor.
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