Exit polls in Ireland suggest the incumbent center-right parties are likely to form a coalition government, but vote counting continued on Sunday with left-wing Sinn Féin still in the running.
The Ipsos B&A poll, which asked 5,018 voters across the country how they voted, found that centre-right party Fine Gael was the first choice of 21% of voters, with another centre-right party, Fianna.・Fail was 19.5%. .
The two parties, which were running a coalition government before the election, will need support from small groups and independents to win a majority in the House of Representatives (174 seats).
According to the poll, the centrist opposition leftist Sinn Féin has a support rating of 21.1%, with a margin of error of plus or minus 1.4 percentage points.
Ireland votes for incumbent to cling to power in close election
People arrive to cast their votes at a polling station at St. Lawrence O’Toole’s National School in Dublin, Friday, November 29, 2024, as voters head to the polls in the 2024 Irish General Election. (Brian Lawless/PA via AP)
The two center-right parties have yet to reach the 88 seats needed to secure majority control, and coalition talks are slender as Europe awaits the potential shake-up that President-elect Trump’s return will bring. It could last for a week.
Sinn Féin made an astonishing breakthrough in the 2020 election, taking the lead in the popular vote, but Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are pushing back against Sinn Féin due to its left-wing policies and 30-year historical ties to the Irish Republican Army. – He was excluded from the government because he refused to cooperate with Fein. Riots in Northern Ireland.
Sinn Féin, which aims to reunite Ireland with the independent Republic of Ireland, could become the National Party’s largest party but may struggle to find enough coalition partners to form a government. During the election campaign, both Fine Gael and Fianna Fail insisted they had no intention of coming into government on this platform.
Michael Gallagher, a former political science professor at Trinity College Dublin, told RTE, citing the vote count, that Fianna Fail could win up to 48 seats and Fine Gael 39. He said there is a possibility that he will come out on top with the remaining 88 seats.
According to Reuters, the most likely candidates for a coalition are the centre-left Labor Party and the Social Democrats, with Mr Gallagher saying both parties could win eight seats each.
A Sinn Féin-led government would shake up Irish politics and the future of Britain. The party is already Northern Ireland’s largest party, and the republic’s Sinn Féin government is likely to push for a referendum on Irish unity within the next few years. Party leader Mary Lou McDonald said Sinn Féin had “broken the mold of politics” in Ireland.
“Two-party politics is now gone. Consigned to the dustbin of history, but that in itself is very important,” she told The Associated Press as she awaited the results at a tabulation center in Dublin. “The question for us now is: what are we going to do about it?”
Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald walks to vote at the Deaf Village of Ireland (DVI) on Navan Street, Dublin, as voters head to the polls for the 2024 Irish General Election, Friday, November 29, 2024. . (via Niall Carson/PA)
Opinion polls only provide an indication, they do not reveal which party will form the next government. Ireland has a complex system of proportional representation, with each of the country’s 43 constituencies electing multiple members and voters ranking the candidates in order of preference. Therefore, it may take some time before the full results are known.
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The cost of living, and in particular Ireland’s severe housing crisis, was a key theme during the three-week campaign, along with mass immigration, an issue that has long been defined by immigration in this country of 5.4 million people. It has become a flashpoint.
The election results will show whether Ireland can buck the global trend of incumbents being ousted after years of the pandemic, international instability and cost of living pressures.
Analysts said before voting day that the most likely outcome would be another coalition government between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil. That’s still a likely option. The frontrunners for the next prime minister, or prime minister, are current Fine Gael leader Simon Harris and Fianna Fail leader Michael Martin – despite the relatively lackluster performance of both parties. . Results announced Saturday showed Harris, Martin and MacDonald all re-elected to the House of Representatives.
Irish Prime Minister and Fine Gael Party leader Simon Harris (centre), accompanied by his wife Caoimhe and children Cillian and Saoirse, as voters head to the polls in the 2024 Irish general election on Friday, November. , voting at Delgany National School in County Wicklow. 29th, 2024. (via Niall Carson/PA)
Fine Gael candidate Paschal Donohoe, a cabinet minister in the outgoing government, said the main theme of the election was “one of holding the centre”.
“The big picture is that the two main parties in this government, particularly Fine Gael, will perform very strongly as current governments across Europe struggle to win re-election,” he said. spoke. A.P.
The Greens, which won 12 seats in the last parliament and supported the coalition government, have admitted they are headed for a disappointing result.
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A number of independent candidates include reputed organized crime boss Jerry the Monk Hutch, who has been supported since being released on bail on money laundering charges to run for election in Spain this month. is rapidly increasing.
Early results suggested he had a good chance of winning the seat in Dublin.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
