The three major Irish parties await the end of election day this Friday to begin exploring government options, after general elections in which the centrist Fianna Fáil (FF), the Christian Democrat Fine Gael (FG), and the leftist Sinn Fein (SF), opt for victory.
The vote count will begin this Saturday and the first provisional results could be known by mid-afternoon, although the public broadcaster RTE will release an exit poll when schools close at 10:00 p.m. – in Irish time, that is, one hour less than in Spain.
The current Prime Minister and leader of Fine Gael, Simon Harrisalready warned today that “several fascinating days” are coming, as he recalled that this poll could point to the party with the most votes, which does not mean, he specified, that it will end up with more seats in the Lower House (Dáil), composed of 174 deputies.
This is what happened to the leader of the SF and the opposition, Mary Lou McDonaldwho won the popular vote in 2020 but fell one seat away from the FF of Michael Martin after the transfer of votes, as allowed by the Irish electoral system, the complexity of which often prolongs the count for days.
The failure of the nationalist leader to form a government gave way to the historic coalition between centrists and Christian Democrats, rivals since the Civil war (1922-1923), who have shared power since then.
“Compare this with the British system. The clock Big Ben rings the bell at 10 and SkyNews says who has won. Our system is different,” celebrated the taoiseach (Prime Minister) as he cast his ballot early this morning in his County Wicklow constituency, south of Dublin.
technical tie
The latest polls had given the three parties support of around 20%, a technical tie caused by the fall in popularity of Harris – until recently the favorite –, the comeback of McDonald and the stability of Martin, deputy prime minister and taoiseach between 2020 and 2022.
For this reason, Martin today declared himself “cautiously optimistic” about his chances of victory, given that he is the most popular candidate when it comes to receiving transfers of votes from other parties and candidates, to the point that even the Christian Democrats, internally, give him as favorite.
For his part, McDonald also highlighted his “optimism, hope, confidence and ambition” to become, after the recount, the first SF leader to come to power in Dublin and put an end to the hegemony of the two major parties.
“This is the moment when people can really shape the next Government, and we need a new Government,” added the nationalist leader.
Forced to agree
With so much equality, the three parties will be forced to seek pacts among themselves and/or with other minority forces, while Harris and Martin have shown themselves in favor of reissuing, if necessary, the pact of the last legislature, in which The Greens entered, while they have already ruled out the SF.
The three leaders could also look at the independent bloc, which obtains around 20% of votes, while formations such as the Labor Party, the Social Democrats and the Greens receive between 4 and 6% and are nominated as possible partners. .
Most likely, according to observers, Martin and Harris will re-coalide, although their number of seats will determine who leads the negotiations and who will be the new taoiseacha position that could be rotating again.
During the campaign, Christian Democrats and centrists highlighted the good progress of the economy and asked for the vote to maintain financial stability in a prosperous country, but affected by a serious housing crisisthe deterioration of the public services and the rebound of the immigration.
For its part, Sinn Féin once again put these problems at the center of its program to try to repeat the electoral success of five years ago, to which it has now added a plan to hold a referendum on the reunification of Ireland before 2030.
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