Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern's long-ruling Fianna Fail party and the left-wing Greens announced an agreement on Tuesday to forge a coalition unprecedented in Irish political history.
The deal, after eight days and nights of negotiations, could pave the way for Ahern's re-election as prime minister when the parliament convenes today -- and, analysts agreed, alter the rampant course of Ireland's Celtic Tiger economy.
Since rising to power in 1997, Ahern has driven a center-right government that promoted tax breaks for big business, the biggest roads-building program in history and Europe's most dramatic property boom.
The Greens criticize all three developments as environmentally destructive and say the next government must tax polluters, favor public transport and make housing affordable again.
Critically, the coalition pact must be ratified by at least two-thirds of Green members at an emergency party convention yesterday. If Green leaders lose the vote, their party constitution will bar them from entering government with Fianna Fail.
But analysts and Green leaders forecast likely acceptance.
"It would be quite a crisis for the Green Party if they do not get this through tomorrow and I suspect that they will," analyst Noel Whelan said.
"These negotiations have been complex and painstaking, and I believe we have a deal we can sell to our members now," Green party chairman John Gormley said.
The Greens sent out e-mails and telephone text messages to about 1,000 grassroots members to summon them to a Dublin conference center to vote on the terms of the pact.
Fianna Fail negotiators said the Greens had driven a hard bargain and secured key elements of their agenda for promoting wind, solar and tidal energy and boosting Ireland's public transport in this traditionally car-dependent society.
The Greens -- who are derisively dismissed by some Fianna Fail activists as "tree huggers" and members of the "loony left" -- were expected to receive at least one Cabinet post, either environment or transportation and one junior post as part of the deal.
But both parties, citing the need to brief their own members first yesterday, refused to discuss any details.
"Of course there have been compromises in respect of aspects of policy," said Fianna Fail's chief negotiator, Brian Cowen.
NO EXCUSES: Marcos said his administration was acting on voters’ demands, but an academic said the move was emotionally motivated after a poor midterm showing Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday sought the resignation of all his Cabinet secretaries, in a move seen as an attempt to reset the political agenda and assert his authority over the second half of his single six-year term. The order came after the president’s allies failed to win a majority of Senate seats contested in the 12 polls on Monday last week, leaving Marcos facing a divided political and legislative landscape that could thwart his attempts to have an ally succeed him in 2028. “He’s talking to the people, trying to salvage whatever political capital he has left. I think it’s
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge. During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). The two candidates, who qualified for the second round after coming in the top two places in the first vote on Sunday last week, clashed over Poland’s relations with Ukraine, EU policy and the track records of their
UNSCHEDULED VISIT: ‘It’s a very bulky new neighbor, but it will soon go away,’ said Johan Helberg of the 135m container ship that run aground near his house A man in Norway awoke early on Thursday to discover a huge container ship had run aground a stone’s throw from his fjord-side house — and he had slept through the commotion. For an as-yet unknown reason, the 135m NCL Salten sailed up onto shore just meters from Johan Helberg’s house in a fjord near Trondheim in central Norway. Helberg only discovered the unexpected visitor when a panicked neighbor who had rung his doorbell repeatedly to no avail gave up and called him on the phone. “The doorbell rang at a time of day when I don’t like to open,” Helberg told television
A team of doctors and vets in Pakistan has developed a novel treatment for a pair of elephants with tuberculosis (TB) that involves feeding them at least 400 pills a day. The jumbo effort at the Karachi Safari Park involves administering the tablets — the same as those used to treat TB in humans — hidden inside food ranging from apples and bananas, to Pakistani sweets. The amount of medication is adjusted to account for the weight of the 4,000kg elephants. However, it has taken Madhubala and Malika several weeks to settle into the treatment after spitting out the first few doses they
RSS