Irish Prime Minister Calls for General Elections

There are 159 seats in the General Election up for grabs. (Wikipedia Commons)

Irish voters will head to the polls after Ireland’s Prime Minister, Leo Varadkar, announced a general election for February 8, according to the Irish Times. Campaigning is already well underway for the election, with 159 seats in the Parliament up for grabs. This general election will be the first election scheduled for a Saturday in more than a century.

Early indications suggest that the outcome will be close. A recent poll conducted by the Irish Times put public support for Fianna Fáil, the main opposition party, at 25 percent, with the ruling party Fine Gael at 23 percent and another opposition party, Sinn Féin, at 21 percent. 

Announcing his decision to seek a fresh mandate, Varadkar stated that now was the best time for an election given the impending conclusion of the Brexit deal, which would allow the U.K. to leave the European Union in an “orderly” manner. However, his center-right minority government lost significant power in December 2019 after only narrowly defeating a vote of no confidence introduced against the party’s Minister for Housing, Eoghan Murphy, by 56 votes to 53. 

In early January, a number of Independent parliamentarians indicated that they would soon table another no-confidence motion, this time in Minister of Health Simon Harris. While this motion was defeated, it was clear that change was imminent. At this point, Varadkar “had to call an election on his own terms or be brought down in a confidence vote,” reports the Irish Times.

Fine Gael initially attempted to frame the election around its management of Brexit and the economy. This strategy, reports the Irish Times, has largely failed. In a recent Ipsos MRBI poll, 40 percent of people surveyed stated that health would decide their vote, with another 32 percent identifying housing as their most important issue. Fine Gael’s record on these crucial issues is poor, and, according to the Independent, under the party’s leadership, both the number of hospital patients without beds and the number of homeless people rose to record-high levels. 

Given these developments, the mood for change amongst the electorate is unsurprisingly vehement, with 75 percent of voters responding to an Irish Times survey in favor of a change in government and 55 percent indicating their belief that the country is headed in the wrong direction. 

Unsurprisingly, the main opposition party, Fianna Fáil, has benefited from the widespread dissatisfaction with the government. However, Fine Gael’s decline in popularity may also help a third opposition party. Sinn Féin, a left-wing republican party, has also surged, leading to predictions that it may enter government for the first time as a junior coalition partner. 

In Irish politics, where coalition governments have been the norm for decades, the key question is not which party will have the largest win, but which parties will be able to broker a workable coalition deal; as of now, Sinn Féin appears poised as potential kingmakers.