Ireland’s ruling Fianna Fail party suffered a crushing defeat in elections dominated by the economic collapse and an EU-IMF bailout, exit polls showed yesterday, with the opposition poised to take power.
Prime Minister Brian Cowen’s party, which has ruled Ireland for most of the past 80 years, slumped to its worst ever general election result with just 15.1 per cent of the vote, the poll for state broadcaster RTE said.
As widely expected, last Friday’s election saw his government become the first to fall as a result of the debt crisis in the 17-country eurozone.
Fine Gael, the main opposition party, is now set to form the new government and its leader Enda Kenny will be prime minister after it took 36.1 per cent, although it failed to win enough votes to govern alone.
Outgoing Fianna Fail minister Conor Lenihan, who lost his own seat in Dublin, conceded his opponents were on course for a “stunning victory” and congratulated them.
“Enda Kenny has brought a party that was on its knees in 2002 and back to this absolutely stunning victory they’re going to achieve in this election,” Lenihan told RTE.
Earlier one of his former ministerial colleagues, Noel Dempsey, said he would be happy if Fianna Fail emerged with more than 20 seats in the 166-seat Dail, or lower parliament – less than a third of its current total.
“It’s looking pretty grim, I have to say,” Dempsey said.
Fine Gael general secretary Tom Curran predicted his party would win “between 72 and 75 seats” and told the Irish Times that even if it was not going to get an overall majority, “it’s a historic day for the party”.
To form a government, Fine Gael could ally with independents or another party. A likely coalition partner is Labour, which is on 20.5 per cent, according to the exit poll of 3,500 voters by Millward Brown Lansdowne.
Fianna Fail bore the brunt of public anger over the debt crisis that crippled Ireland’s once-vibrant ‘Celtic Tiger’ economy and forced Dublin to seek the bailout in November.
The €85-billion package agreed with the EU and International Monetary Fund was widely viewed as a humiliation.
Kenny, a 59-year-old former teacher, has vowed to amend the terms of the loans and restore some of Ireland’s shattered pride, beginning with visits in recent weeks to Brussels and Berlin.
But considerable obstacles lie ahead, as Dublin is under pressure to cut its ultra-low 12.5 per cent corporate tax rate in return – something Kenny has argued is vital for the Irish economy.
The Fine Gael leader has warned there is no quick fix to Ireland’s problems and even under a new government, the future looks tough.