Irish political landscape set for historic shift as voters punish coalition

The exit poll for Irish state broadcaster RTE said Fine Gael received 24.8 percent of first-preference votes, Fianna Fail 21.1 percent and Sinn Fein 16 percent.

Exit polls from the Irish general election gave no party an overall majority Saturday and suggested the outgoing governing coalition would not be re-elected.

Cast as a choice on how to distribute the profits of a strong economic recovery since accepting a 2010 sovereign bailout, the election could force the country’s two biggest parties to consider an uneasy and potentially unstable alliance.

With heavy doses of free-spending populism, Fianna Fail won the most parliamentary seats in every general election from 1932 to 2011, although it didn’t always win enough to block the Fine Gael-Labour alternative.

Exit polls from Friday’s vote predicted that the current ruling party, Fina Gael, had taken a battering at the polls, winning only 26 per cent of the vote – only narrowly ahead of its old century-old rival Fianna Fail on 23 per cent.

In Ireland’s system of proportional representation, voters get one ballot but can vote for as many listed candidates as they like in order of preference.

In a remarkable comeback after its near wipeout at the last election, the senior Opposition party Fianna Fail could nearly double its seats. Ireland’s voters were deciding Friday who should lead their economically rebounding nation for the next five years, with polls sugg…

Fianna Fail chief Micheal Martin, whose party suffered its worst-ever defeat in 2011 after taking Ireland to the brink of bankruptcy, said he believed Irish voters want a change in government.

In Dublin, Fine Gael has emerged as the largest party with 25.7 per cent of the vote, followed by Sinn Féin with 15.4 per cent, according to the poll.

Fine Gael strategist Mark Mortell said that Kenny would “hold off making phone calls” until early next week but that there was a very high risk of a second election this year.

The first indications of results are expected with the release of an exit poll at 0700 GMT on Tuesday as counting gets under way, a process likely to continue all weekend.

It points to a hung parliament, with the voter schism threatening to blow apart a duopoly enjoyed for more than 80 years by Fine Gael and Fianna Fail, which swapped power for generations.

“It’s very hard to then turn around to people who are still smarting and say: ‘Things are going really well and if you stick with us we can make it happen for you.’ That’s a hard message to sell”.

Michael Lowry is one of the most divisive figures in Irish politics – and the voters of Tipperary in southwest Ireland keep rewarding him for it.

The parties will have until 10 March – when the Dail is scheduled to reconvene – to forge a power-sharing deal.

“The only word I can use right now is deep disappointment”, he said. “How stable a government, that remains to be seen”, he said.