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Ireland is voting Friday in a parliamentary election that will decide the next government — and will show whether Ireland bucks the global trend of incumbents being ousted by disgruntled voters after years of pandemic, international instability and cost-of-living pressures. Polls opened at 7 a.m.
. (0700GMT), and Ireland’s 3.8 million voters are selecting 174 lawmakers to sit in the Dail, the lower house of parliament.
2,000-YEAR-OLD FIG UNEARTHED IN IRELAND MARKS ‘OLDEST EXAMPLE OF AN EXOTIC FRUIT’ DISCOVERED IN THE AREA Here’s a look at the parties, the issues and the likely outcome. Who’s running? The outgoing government was led by the two parties who have dominated Irish politics for the past century: Fine Gael and Fianna Fail. They have similar center-right policies but are longtime rivals with origins on opposing sides of Ireland’s 1920s civil war.
After the 2020 election ended in a virtual dead heat they formed a coalition, agreeing to share Cabinet posts and take turns as taoiseach, or prime minister. Fianna Fail leader Micheál Martin served as premier for the first half of the term and was replaced by Fine Gael’s Leo Varadkar in December 2022. Varadkar unexpectedly stepped down in March, passing the job to current Taoiseach Simon Harris.
Opposition party Sinn Fein achieved a stunning breakthrough in the 2020 election, topping the popular vote, but was shut out of governm.
