Ireland goes to the polls with the government coalition parties going head-to-head with the main opposition force, Sinn Fein, and at the end of a campaign focused on the housing crisis, the rise in the cost of living and the reception of migrants. Voters are asked to choose the 174 new members of the lower house of Parliament, the Dail. But the final result may not be clear for days because of the nation’s complicated electoral system that involves a proportional but single-member vote in which there is redistribution of votes of eliminated candidates during multiple rounds of counting.
The polls
Opinion polls show the three main parties, Fine Gael and centre-right Fianna Fail, and the left-wing nationalist party Sinn Fein, once the political arm of the IRA (the armed party fighting for the reunification of the island), each at about 20 percent.
“Sinn Fein would have to do a lot better than the polls suggest and Fine Gael would have to do a lot worse for things to change significantly,” said Theresa Reidy, senior lecturer in politics at University College Cork. The scenario is not impossible, but the left-wing formation according to the scholar should exceed the 25 percent it secured in 2020.
The scenario
Fine Gael, whose leader is Prime Minister Simon Harris, called at just 37 years of age to replace his predecessor Leo Varadkar in April and then call early elections at the beginning of November, maintained a solid lead at the start of the campaign, but has had an inflection in recent days. The 38-year-old taoiseach (prime minister) of Ireland has been credited with re-energizing the party, partly thanks to his social media strategy. But Fine Gael lost its edge after a clip of Harris behaving rudely and contemptuously towards a social worker circulated on social media.
Ireland will have a ‘tiktoker’ prime minister, the youngest in the country’s history
At the last general election in 2020, Sinn Fein won the popular vote but failed to find coalition partners willing to govern together. This led to weeks of negotiations that ended with Fine Gael, in power since 2011, breaking a deal with Fianna Fail, led by veteran Micheal Martin. The two once opposing parties found a compromise and established that the role of prime minister would be entrusted alternately to the two leaders.
The themes of the campaign
The Irish economy (and therefore the state’s revenues) depends heavily on foreign direct investments and the lavish tax returns of companies, mainly technology giants such as Google and US pharmaceuticals, which enjoy a particularly advantageous tax regime. But Donald Trump’s threats to impose tariffs on imports and collect corporate taxes on US companies from countries such as Ireland have caused concern about economic stability.
Mary Lou McDonald’s Sinn Fein has seen a decline in support due to its progressive stance on social issues and migration policy, now that immigration has become a key electoral issue. But the party recovered thanks to a campaign strongly focused on housing policy and to present itself as the only alternative to Fine Gael and Fianna Fail, which have alternated in power since Irish independence from Britain in 1921.
