Ireland’s main opposition parties are on course to form a coalition with a record majority after voters, incensed at the country’s financial plight, shunned the government and its rescue deal with Europe.
An exit poll for state broadcaster RTE signalled that Fianna Fail would be crushed in the biggest collapse in support for any Irish party since independence from Britain in 1921.
The humiliation of having to go cap in hand to the European Union and the International Monetary Fund last year was the killer blow for the ruling party and will make for uncomfortable reading in Lisbon, seen as next in line for a bailout.
“This is a meltdown for Fianna Fail,” said David Farrell, professor of politics at University College Dublin.
Early tallies suggested the former giant of Irish politics would lose more than 50 seats and be reduced to a rump of around 20 lawmakers sharing the opposition benches with a colourful ragbag of anti-bailout independents.
Sinn Fein, best known as the political wing of the now-dormant guerrilla group, the Irish Republican Army, has also done well.
The make-up of a new parliament will not be confirmed until manual counting finishes on Sunday but a senior member of the main opposition party Fine Gael told Reuters it would likely form a coalition with the centre-left Labour party.
“Fine Gael and Labour formed a joint platform in 2007 so you expect it should be possible even in difficult times to negotiate a deal,” said Richard Bruton, Fine Gael’s spokesman for enterprise and a likely future minister.
The RTE/Millward Brown Lansdowne poll showed the centre-right Fine Gael winning 36 per cent of first-preference votes under Ireland’s system of proportional representation, its best result since 1982, but falling short of expectations for an outright victory as voters apparently baulked at the prospect of a single-party government.
Around 36 percent of first preferences would translate into around 72 seats in the 166-seat parliament.
Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny, Ireland’s longest-serving parliamentarian, is almost certain to be the next prime minister.
The former primary school teacher will face immediate pressure to fulfill an election pledge to renegotiate an 85-billion-euro EU/IMF bailout and ease some of the burden on an electorate already struggling to make ends meet in the aftermath of a devastating property bubble.
Fine Gael, like Fianna Fail a pro-business and low-tax party, has pledged to stick to the overall austerity targets laid down by the EU, but Labour wants an extra year to get the deficit under control and has taken a tougher line on renegotiating the high interest rate charged by Brussels.
Under the RTE exit poll, Labour secured 20.5 percent of the vote, possibly giving it a record 35 seats.
Labour’s presence in government means Ireland will fight hard to get a lower rate of interest and more burden-sharing with bondholders but Dublin’s dependence on Europe to keep its bust banks alive means that Frankfurt will call the shots.
“There could be some kind of showdown but I suspect in a one-on-one between Enda Kenny and Angela Merkel, that Angela Merkel will win every time,” Eoin O’Malley, a politics lecturer at Dublin City University, said.
Despite squabbling in the election campaign, Fine Gael and Labour have a history of working well together and with a sizeable majority should bring some stability back to Irish politics after the chaos of Fianna Fail’s last days in office.
Ireland has avoided the kind of public protests seen in fellow euro zone struggler Greece but disaffection with mainstream politics is growing.
The hard-left Sinn Fein party is set to possibly treble its presence in parliament to around 15 seats and its leader Gerry Adams, who was officially banned from speaking on Irish media until 1993, could top the poll in the border county of Louth.
Independents -- ranging from far-left ideologues to a former stockbroker as well as a pro-cannabis campaigner and a builder famed for his wavy blonde hair -- were all expected to win.
Source: The Globe and Mail
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