Irish Election: Counting Begins as Exit Polls Suggest Coalition Punished
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Vote counting is underway in Ireland’s general election on Saturday, as two exit polls indicated that the ruling Fine Gael-Labour coalition has fallen well short of a majority, opening up the possibility of a second vote later this year.
The polls suggest that the coalition has been punished over its austerity programme, which caused widespread anger, particularly over the imposition of water rates. Early indications are that there was a turnout of about 66%.
The exit poll findings also open up the possibility of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil burying their historic differences, which date back to the Irish civil war, and forming a “grand coalition” as the Christian Democrats and Social Democrats have done in Germany. Both of the main parties have ruled out cooperation with the party expected to finish third, Sinn Féin.
An Irish Times/MRBI exit poll released Saturday put Fine Gael on 26.1%, less than four percentage points ahead of its main opposition, Fianna Fáil, on 22.9%, the Guardian reported.
The Irish prime minister, Enda Kenny, is hoping to make history by becoming the first Fine Gael leader to be returned as PM for a second consecutive term.
The exit poll showed considerable gains for Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin.Fine Gael’s coalition partners, Labour, were on 7.8%, down from 19.4% in the 2011 election.
Based on those results Fine Gael and Labour would not have enough seats to form a majority in the Dáil, the Irish parliament.
An RTE exit poll released on Saturday morning predicted broadly similar results, with Fine Gael on 24.8% of first preference votes – 2 points down from the Irish Times survey – and their Labour coalition partners on 7%. RTE puts Fianna Fáil on about 23% and Sinn Féin on 16%.
In the runup to the vote Fine Gael emphasised the Irish economic recovery from the 2008 crash, stressing that the recovery was fragile and that Ireland needed another stable government. Critics said the measures taken to plug the gap in national finances – tax rises, public spending cuts, wage freezes, etc – were too extreme and hit those on low-to-middle incomes.
If the exit polls are accurate, they signal a remarkable turnaround for Fianna Fáil, which suffered its worst electoral showing in the republic’s history in 2011 after fourteen years of continuous rule. They would also suggest a good showing for Sinn Féin, which campaigned on an anti-austerity campaign, and for independent candidates, who could play the role of kingmakers in any new coalition, although such a government would be politically unstable.
On Saturday morning one of Ireland’s veteran election number crunchers, Trinity College Dublin political scientist Michael Marsh, gave the following seat projection based on the RTE exit poll: Fine Gael, 46, Labour 9, Fianna Fáil 37, Sinn Féin 27, the Social Democrats on 7, People Before Profit 6, Green Party 4, Independent Alliance 4, Renua 3, independents 13 and others 2. A total of 79 seats are needed to form a majority.
“Either we can have another election now, and do away with the count, or we’ll let them muddle around for a month or so and maybe they can think the unthinkable,” said Marsh. “It’s hard to see any sort of government without Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil getting together.”
If no coalition is formed before the Dáil sits again in March, it will be unable to elect a new prime minister, raising the prospect of a second election.
“It’s a very disappointing day from the government’s point of view,” Tom Curran, Fine Gael’s general secretary, told RTE. “If the exit polls are right … we will fall far short of being able to form a government.”
Former government minister Michael McDowell warned on Saturday morning that the exit poll results, if translated into real votes in the count, raise serious issues for Enda Kenny and Joan Burton, the head of the Labour party.
“I was a leader myself, so I’m not saying this from a smug point of view,” the former justice minister said.
McDowell, who served in government during the critical years of the Northern Ireland peace process, described the Fine Gael campaign as a “flat tyre”.
Leftwing Dáil deputy Paul Murphy, from the Anti-Austerity Alliance, said Labour’s poor performance in the exit polls would be a “political earthquake” if reflected in the vote count. He also said that Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil might be forced into a coalition together.
