Ireland heading for coalition with Enda Kenny as leader
A coalition government is the likely outcome of Ireland’s general election, with Fine Gael’s Enda Kenny as Taoiseach. Carl Dinnen says voters have delivered a “fracturing of the Irish body politic”.
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The voters wanted payback; now they have it. Fianna Fail has run Ireland for 14 years, through unprecedented boom and spectacular bust. They have taken the blame for the humiliation of of the 85 billion euro bail out from the EU and IMF. The voters have taken revenge.
Before this election Fianna Fail’s leader Micheál Martin warned that the very future of the party was at stake. He was right. According to the state broadcaster RTE’s exit poll they have cornered just 15.1 per cent of the votes. It’s likely to be the worst showing in their history. Indeed the party which has run Ireland for 61 out of the last 79 years now looks like it’ll be lucky to keep a single candidate in Dublin.
That is not just a bad showing. It is a fracturing of the Irish body politic. The two main parties: Fianna Fail and Fine Gael have dominated Irish politics since the civil war of the early 1920s. Their positions are sometimes hard to tell apart; both are centre rightish. It is said that people vote according to the sides their families took in the war.
But those old – arguably outmoded – allegiances could be swept away by all this.
True; Fine Gael will be the overall winners, their leader Enda Kenny will be Taoiseach. But the Labour party’s vote has increased significantly; they’ve out polled Fianna Fail and have probably done especially well in Dublin. If Labour were minded to they could lead the opposition, making Fianna Fail look irrelevant.
Read more – Ireland counting the political cost of the economic fall
A more likely scenario seems to be Labour joining a Fine Gael lead coalition; its a familiar recipe for Irish government. That will leave Fianna Fail in opposition along with the fourth party Sinn Fein.
So to the loser, Michael Martin, the difficult task of rebuilding his party lest it slip quietly into history.
And to the winner, Enda Kenny, the difficult task of restructuring the economy, creating new jobs, halting the flood of emigration and – if he can – renegotiating the terms of the bailout.
First seat declared goes to Labour
The first seat in the Irish general election has gone to Joan Burton, the Labour Party finance spokeswoman.
The Dublin West TD topped the poll with 9,627 votes in a constituency where Finance Minister Brian Lenihan is fighting for political survival.
The Fianna Fail candidate is battling to take the third seat with his party witnessing its worst electoral performance in history.