Ireland’s uneven economic recovery was the focus in Friday’s election in which voters punished the government for years of austerity despite warnings that political instability might damage a nascent recovery.
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The Provisionals’ most politically savvy commander, Gerry Adams, transformed his Sinn Fein faction over two decades into a well-organized, highly motivated political party.
“I think overall people felt that there was an unfair recovery in the last five years, that an bad lot of parts of the country didn’t feel it”, said John Sheridan, a 28-year-old operations manager and Fianna Fail activist. Ireland began voting early on Friday in the country’s General Election where recent polls suggest that the outcome could leave no…
RTE’s showed Fine Gael on 24.8 per cent of first preference votes; Labour on 7.1 per cent; Fianna Fail on 21.1 per cent; Sinn Fein on 16 per cent; Anti Austerity Alliance/People Before Profit on 4.7 per cent; Greens on 3.6 per cent; Social Democrats on 3.7 per cent; Renua on 2.4 per cent; Independents on 11 per cent; and the formal Independent Alliance on three per cent.
The new Sinn Fein initially served as the public face of the outlawed Provisional IRA, a paramilitary group bent on overthrowing Northern Ireland’s Protestant government and forcing the territory into the independent south. The Provisionals pursued a deadly feud with former colleagues in what was rebranded the Official IRA and Sinn Fein.
Fine Gael ministers Pascal Donohoe and James Reilly are also uncomfortable. That is far below the 36 percent it won five years ago and the 30 percent opinion poll rating it had at the start of campaigning.
With partners Labour in line for 7.1 percent of the ballot, the governing coalition will fall well short of the 41-42 percent they identified as needed for re-election.
Fianna Fail was set to rise to 25 percent.
“It’s either a Fine Gael-Fianna Fail coalition, which I think is highly unlikely or a second election, which I think is probably more likely but I don’t think it will happen immediately”, said Eoin O’Malley, politics lecturer at Dublin City University.
It points to a hung parliament, with the voter schism threatening to blow apart a duopoly enjoyed for more than 80 years by Fine Gael and Fianna Fail, which swapped power for generations.
It would appear that the campaign run by the government coalition, which consists of Fine Gael and Labour, did not resonate with the Irish electorate.
Martin says “we’re committed to doing our best by the country and ensuring that the country gets a good government”.
The two are politically similar but bitter rivals whose divisions date back to Ireland’s 1920s civil war and who ruled out a deal with each other before the election.
If they fail to do this, another election may be necessary.
While the parties have few policy differences, one minister described the prospect as a “nightmare” during the campaign.
The concern is that a political deal would open the way for left-wing nationalists Sinn Fein to become the Irish Republic’s main opposition party. Under Ireland’s proportional representation system, exact results are hard to call.
Lowry retained his parliamentary seat in election results announced Saturday.
Typically an Irish government needs to win more than 40 percent of first-preference votes to command a majority in Ireland’s 158-seat parliament.
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Exit poll projects that PM Enda Kenny’s government will not secure majority as voters react to uneven economic recovery.
