By Chinedu Onyejelem

An Irish university lecturer has advocated total reform of the candidate selection process following the election of controversial celebrity Donald Trump as US president.

Writing in this issue of Metro Éireann, Dr Scott Fitzsimmons argues that the system should be reconfigured to ensure that “unqualified candidates” like Trump who incite violence and bigotry will never again have the chance to run for the west’s highest political office.

Among the suggestions by the lecturer in International Relations at the University of Limerick are arranging for both parties to hold all of their presidential primaries on the same day across the country’s 50 states.

“This would greatly reduce the momentum effects produced by the current staggered system that Trump benefitted from,” he said.