Ireland’s incumbent parties look likely to hang on to power after a fractured election
File photo of Fine Gael leader Simon Harris speaking at a convention in Athlone, central Ireland on March 24, 2024, after becoming de facto prime minister-in-waiting. Harris took over following the shock resignation of predecessor Leo Varadkar.
Paul Faith | Afp | Getty Images
Ireland’s two long-dominant center-right parties looked likely to form a new government as results came in from a fractured national election, though with a reduced vote share and complex coalition negotiations ahead.
As ballot-counting continued Sunday, incumbent governing parties Fine Gael and Fianna Fail and left-of-center opposition Sinn Fein were jostling to see which would win the most seats in the 174-seat Dail, the lower house of Ireland’s parliament.
Sinn Fein, which aims to reunify the Republic of Ireland with the U.K. territory of Northern Ireland, lacks a clear path to power because the other two parties say they won’t work with it, partly because of its historic ties with the Irish Republican Army during three decades of violence in Northern Ireland.
Outgoing Prime Minister Simon Harris of Fine Gael, Fianna Fail leader Micheál Martin and Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald all won reelection to their parliamentary seats in results announced Saturday.
Ireland uses a complex system of proportional representation in which each of the country’s 43 constituencies elects several lawmakers and voters rank candidates in order of preference. As a result, it can take days for full results to be known.
“The people of Ireland have now spoken,” Harris said. “We now have to work out exactly what they have said, and that is going to take a little bit of time.”
Partial results from Friday’s election showed electors spreading their votes widely among the big three, several smaller parties and an assortment of independent candidates, and any coalition will likely involve smaller parties or independents.
The cost of living — especially Ireland’s acute housing crisis — was a dominant topic in the three-week campaign, alongside immigration, which has become an emotive and challenging issue in a country of 5.4 million people long defined by emigration.
If early results are borne out, Ireland may buck the global trend of incumbents being ousted by disgruntled voters after years of pandemic, international instability and cost-of-living pressures.
The outgoing government was led by the two parties that have dominated Irish politics for the past century. Fine Gael and Fianna Fail have similar policies, but are longtime rivals with origins on opposing sides of Ireland’s 1920s civil war. After the 2020 election ended in a virtual dead heat, they formed a coalition.
Fine Gael candidate Paschal Donohoe, a minister in the outgoing government, said the main theme of the election was “one of the center holding.”
Nonetheless, voter disaffection was making itself felt in some unexpected results. Among a large crop of independent candidates was reputed organized crime boss Gerry “the Monk” Hutch, who saw a groundswell of support after he was bailed on money-laundering charges in Spain in November in order to run for election.
Partial results suggested Hutch, who last year was acquitted of killing a gangland rival, stood a good chance of winning a seat in Dublin.