Ireland - Election 2016
Parliamentary elections were held 27 Feruary 2016. Ireland has a bicameral Parliament (Oireachtas) that consists of the Senate (Seanad Éireann) with 60 seats and the Parliament (Dail Éireann) with 166 seats. All 158 members of Dail Éireann are directly elected in multi-seat constituencies by single-transferable vote to 5-year terms. The district magnitude of constituencies ranges from 3 to 5.
People clearly decided not to re-elect the Government. The ruling coalition appeared to have been hit by a backlash against years of austerity and lack of benefit for the country's poor. Prime Minister Enda Kenny said "Clearly the government of Fine Gael and Labour are not going to be returned to office and obviously one has to wait now until all the counts are in right across the country to see what the options that must be considered are."
The indications were that Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin, Independents and smaller parties made major gains. Both Government parties were set to lose a significant number of seats. It would not be easy to form a new government. The outgoing Fine Gael-Labour coalition was elected in 2011 on a landslide with the biggest parliamentary majority ever.
Early official results suggested that center-right Fine Gael would remain the largest party in Parliament with 26 percent of the vote, followed by center-right Fianna Fail with 23 percent. Fianna Fáil was on track to win more than double its number of seats. Fine Gael and Fianna Fail had enjoyed a duopoly for more than 80 years, swapping power for generations.
Bitter rivals, both parties evolved out of Ireland’s bitter civil war, and outsiders have difficulty discerning the differences between them. Fine Gael's predecessors, including their hero Michael Collins, accepted the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty that partitioned Ireland into two states. Fianna Fail founder Eamon de Valera, who was president of the Irish republic, opposed the partition of Ireland, and resigned as president and led the anti-treaty side in a bitter civil war against the government of the new Free State.
Fine Gael blames the precursors of Fianna Fail for the assassination of Michael Collins, while Fianna Fail blames Fine Gael for executing scores of its civil war prisoners. Fine Gael was now centre-right in economic policy, strongly pro-European and increasingly socially liberal. Fianna Fáil, who went to become the most successful political force in post-independence Irish history, is economically centrist and often populist.
One of the iron rules of the country's politics was: Fine Gael and Fianna Fail could never form a coalition together. A grand coalition between the two civil war adversaries, with a rotating Taoiseach, would the only viable way to break the deadlock. But a Fine Gael - Fianna Fáil coalition would see Sinn Féin in opposition, which would virtually guarantee the continued rise of that party’s popularity.
Senior figures in the two-party government of Prime Minister Enda Kenny say their 5-year-old coalition effectively lost the inconclusive election. Kenny's Fine Gael has won 49 seats, opposition Fianna Fail 44, and Kenny's coalition partner Labour just six. Acting Taoiseach Enda Kenny hosted round table discussions with Independents and smaller parties with a view to forming a minority coalition government. Fine Gael indicated it was open to dropping its election pledge of entirely abolishing the Universal Social Charge (USC) in negotiations to form a such government.
Ireland remained mired in political limbo 06 April 2016 after lawmakers overwhelmingly rejected all three candidates to lead the country's next government. It was the second time that lawmakers tried and failed to select a prime minister following Ireland's Feb. 26 election. That poll 40 days ago left the two traditional enemies of political life — caretaker Prime Minister Enda Kenny's Fine Gael and Micheal Martin's Fianna Fail — virtually neck and neck in a fractured parliament.
Fine Gael opposes the idea of forming a minority government, a normal occurrence in other European countries, because it would give Fianna Fail the power to pull the plug and force an early election whenever it chose. For the first time since Ireland's 1920s independence from Britain, only a combination of Fine Gael and Fianna Fail would produce the parliamentary numbers needed for a stable majority.
Enda Kenny, who had been Ireland's Taoiseach, or prime minister, since 2011, announced his retirement in May 2017. The longest-standing Fine Gael Taoiseach the country has ever had, Kenny had led the party for over 15 years. A poll carried out by Amarách Research for Claire Byrne Live and TheJournal.ie found that 41% of Irish people thought Enda Kenny was a good Taoiseach, while 42% of people thought he failed as Taoiseach.
Leo Varadkar won the ruling Fine Gael party's leadership election 02 June 2017. He won the leadership contest with 60 percent of the votes and replaced Kenny. Varadkar, as the new Fine Gael leader, automatically became prime minister-elect, but the party's choice must be confirmed by the full parliament when it reconvened after a break on June 13. Fine Gael led a minority government with support from the Fianna Fail party.
On 13 June 2017 Leo Varadkar became the first European prime minister to claim south Asian heritage, Ireland's youngest ever Taoiseach (prime minister), and the youngest ever prime minister of an EU member since the bloc's foundation. Varadkar made history when he disclosed his sexuality in a 2015 radio interview. In doing so, he became the first openly gay person to serve in Ireland's cabinet. Before the current campaign there was a wide assumption (one still held internationally) that a man of Varadkar's demographic - gay, mixed-race, the son of an immigrant - would lean liberally on social issues. As his record was under wider scrutiny, and many of liberal voters emerged disappointed. Journalist Fintan O’Toole describes Varadkar’s “tendency to talk about political issues, even ones within his own remit, as if he were commenting from the outside on abstract propositions.”
A vote of no confidence in Deputy Prime Minister Frances Fitzgerald meant that the republic could be heading for fresh elections in the coming weeks as the country's minority government crumbled. Fresh elections would leave Prime Minister Leo Varadkar in an extremely weak position during the summit, increasing the threat of a hard border with Northern Ireland. Micheal Martin, the head of opposition party Fianna Fail, said he filed the no-confidence motion in Deputy Prime Minister Frances Fitzgerald, a member of the Fine Gael party that heads the government, over the handling of a legal case against a police whistleblower when she was justice minister in the previous government. The minority government of Prime Minister Leo Varadkar relied on support from Fianna Fail to govern. The no-confidence vote set for 28 November 2017 could lead to elections in December or January unless Fitzgerald resigned.
The Fine Gael-led minority government ruled through a cooperation deal with Fianna Fail that they extended in 2018 as the uncertainty created by Britain’s protracted exit from the European Union kept either side from calling an election.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
