Ireland yesterday began counting votes in Saturday’s national election that an exit poll indicated would show a historic breakthrough for left-wing nationalists Sinn Fein, but leave a fractured political landscape with no clear path to a governing coalition.
In a major realignment, Sinn Fein support surged 50 percent to bring it into joint first place on 22 percent with Fine Gael and Fianna Fail, the two center-right parties that have dominated Irish politics for a century, according to the poll released on Saturday evening after voting ended.
However, Sinn Fein, the former political wing of the Irish Republican Army which has reinvented itself as the country’s main left-wing party, is likely to fall behind the other two because it fielded fewer candidates for parliament.
Photo: Reuters
“I think it’s the most extraordinary exit poll in the history of state and the most extraordinary election in the history of the state ... because of the rise of Sinn Fein,” said Gary Murphy, a professor of politics at Dublin City University.
Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s Fine Gael and rival Fianna Fail are likely to be left slugging it out for first place in terms of seats — before starting what is likely to be a torturous process of forming a governing coalition in the 160-seat parliament.
“Obviously on these numbers it’s going to be very hard for any combination of 80 [seats] to be achieved, we’ll have to wait and see,” Fine Gael minister Heather Humphreys told national broadcaster RTE.
Given Ireland’s complex single transferable vote system, some results were expected from early afternoon, but the final and potentially decisive seats might not be filled until today or even later.
Ireland uses a single transferable vote system to elect multiple deputies from each of the 39 constituencies, making it hard to extrapolate a likely seat forecast from the first preference votes exit poll. That means every ballot of the estimated 3.3 million-strong electorate will count in the battle to form the next government.
Eunan O’Halpin of Trinity College Dublin said it would take “perhaps two-and-a-half days for the full picture to be known.”
The exit poll result was an improvement for Fine Gael, in power since 2011, after opinion polls a week ago showed it in third place.
However, the party’s strategy of focusing on economic growth and its success in negotiating an EU exit deal for Britain failed to capture the imagination of voters, who were far more focused on domestic issues like health and housing, where Sinn Fein focused.
Fianna Fail has ruled out going into coalition for the first time with Fine Gael and both parties say they will not govern with Sinn Fein, meaning there is no obvious government to be formed, analysts said.
Fine Gael and Fianna Fail have said they will look to smaller parties to form what would likely be another minority government — which would require support of one of the two main opposition parties.
The parties have swapped power at every election since emerging from the opposing sides of Ireland’s 1920s civil war. They have similar policies on the economy and trade talks on the post-Brexit ties between Britain and the EU.
Sinn Fein’s candidates were the biggest gainers by vote share, up from 14 percent at the last election in 2016. Early tallies showed Sinn Felin leader Mary Lou McDonald had more than twice the number of votes needed for election in her constituency.
“It’s clear that Sinn Fein are poised to have a very good election,” Sinn Fein deputy parliamentary leader Pearse Doherty told RTE. “That’s the message we were getting, that there was a palpable mood for change.”
Additional reporting by AFP
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