By Johanna Gardener •
Published: 30 Nov 2024 • 14:55
• 2 minutes read
Ireland looks to be heading for a coalition as its three biggest parties have won almost equal numbers of votes in the recent exit poll.
As voting ended on Friday night, the Ipsos B A poll, gave the centre-right party Fine Gael 21 per cent with its centre-right coalition partner in the current government, Fianna Fáil polling at 19.5 per cent. At the same time, left-of-centre party Sinn Féin had tolled 21.1 per cent of votes.
However, with the margin of error set at 1.4 per cent, the election has been too close for a definitive leading party to be announced.
On Saturday, the ballots were being counted. This process can take several hours and days, as the country uses a system of proportional representation. Many are suggesting that Ireland will buck the trend for governments being ousted by dissatisfied voters following a significant period of instability and cost-of-living pressures. This mirrors other nations across Europe equally disgruntled with their system of politics and there is a growing sense of disillusionment with regards to political leaders, leading to lack of strong election leads.
Sinn Féin is emerging as large political party but others refuse coalition
Sinn Féin praised the result. The party, which had urged for change may be likely to come out trumps at the end of the election process as the largest political party. This was suggested by Sinn Féin director of elections Matt Carthy. Sinn Féin currently promotes controversial reunification between Northern Ireland the the independent Republic of Ireland, and there are chances that it could become the largest party in the lower house of parliament the 174-seat Dáil. However, the likelihood of amassing enough coalition partners to form a government remains low, especially when both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have objected to the idea of forming alliances with it.
Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have dominated politics for last century
For the past century, the main government has been led by two dominating parties: Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil. Despite being rivals they have similar policies (generally centre-right wing). The 2020 election around the time of the Covid-19 pandemic obliged the two major parties to form a coalition in which they would take turns leading as Taoiseach, or prime minister. For the first half of the term, Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin served as prime minister with Fine Gael’s Leo Varadkar taking over in December 2022. This changed when Varadkar stepped down the following March and was replaced by current Taoiseach, Simon Harris.
Newly-elected government needs to address housing and immigration
During this period, Sinn Féin also achieved highly but was refused coalition with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. This year, they are hoping to gain ground as what Ireland needs is change given its worrying housing shortage and cost of living. House and rental prices are unaffordable and Ireland is seeing rates of homelessness rise at exponential rates, as well as issues surrounding immigration and conflict, whereby Ireland has struggled to accommodate so many asylum seekers.
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Written by
Johanna Gardener
Originally from Manchester, UK and with a degree in English with Modern Foreign Languages, she has been a permanent resident in Spain for the past 12 years. Many of these years, she has spent working as a secondary school teacher, as well as in journalism, editing and marketing. She currently lives in the historic centre of Malaga, where she enjoys writing, walking and animals.
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