The three leading political parties in Ireland have shown roughly equal results in Ireland’s early parliamentary elections on Saturday.
According to exit polls released by the RTE television channel after the polls closed, the nationalist Sinn Féin party, led by Mary Lou McDonald, received 21.1 per cent of the vote. The centrist conservative Fine Gael (FG) party, led by Prime Minister Simon Harris, won 21 per cent. At the same time, the centrist liberal Fianna Fáil (FF) party, led by Foreign Affairs and Defence Minister Micheál Martin, received the support of 19.5% of voters.
Other parties garnered significantly fewer votes: Social Democrats got 5.8 per cent, Irish Labour Party – 5%, The Greens, who were FF and FG’s partner in the last coalition – 4 per cent. Independent candidates won 12.7 per cent of the vote.
Since at least 88 mandates are required to form a government, it is clear that Ireland’s next government will once again be a coalition government. Coalition governments have become a regular practice in the country, the last time one party governed alone was in 1977, such was Fianna Fáil.
Both parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, have already rejected the possibility of co-operation with Sinn Féin, which is likely to remain the main opposition force. The two major parties would need the support of at least two more small parties to form a coalition.
Ireland has a population of 5.26 million, of which 3.6 million are registered voters. In the previous parliamentary elections in 2020, voter turnout was 62.8 per cent.
