Counting begins in Ireland's election as 3 parties battle for top place

DUBLIN -- Vote counting was underway Saturday in Ireland’s national election after an exit poll suggested the contest is a close-fought race among the country’s three largest political parties.

Ballot boxes were opened at 9 a.m. at count centers across the country, kicking off long hours, or even days, of tallying the results. If the exit poll is borne out, that could be followed by days or weeks of negotiations to form a coalition government.

The exit poll suggested voters’ support is split widely among the three big parties — Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein — as well as several smaller parties and an assortment of independents ranging from the left to the far right.

The poll said center-right party Fine Gael was the first choice of 21% of voters, and another center-right party, Fianna Fail, of 19.5%. The two parties governed in coalition before the election. Left-of-center opposition party Sinn Fein was at 21.1% in the poll.

Pollster Ipsos B&A asked 5,018 voters across the country how they had cast their ballots. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.4 percentage points.

The figures only give an indication and don’t reveal which parties will form the next government. Ireland uses a complex system of proportional representation in which each of the country’s 43 constituencies elects several lawmakers and voters rank candidates in order of preference. As a result, it can take some time for full results to be known.

Fianna Fail politician Michael McGrath, a former finance minister and now a European Union official, said “a number of different parties and groups will have to be involved” in forming a government.

“I hope it is a stable government that has the prospect of lasting the five years because of the challenges we are facing in Ireland and throughout the European Union," he told the PA news agency at a count in Cork, southwest Ireland. “Let’s allow the picture to emerge over the days ahead.”

The result 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.

The cost of living — especially Ireland’s acute housing crisis — was a dominant topic in the three-week campaign, alongside immigration, which has become an emotive and challenging issue in a country of 5.4 million people long defined by emigration.

The outgoing government was led by the two parties that have dominated Irish politics for the past century: Fine Gael and Fianna Fail. They have similar 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.

Before polling day, analysts said the most likely outcome was another Fine Gael-Fianna Fail coalition. That remains a likely option, but the parties would need the support of smaller groups or independents to achieve a majority in the 174-seat Dail, the lower house of Parliament.

Sinn Fein achieved a stunning breakthrough in the 2020 election, topping the popular vote, but was shut out of government because Fianna Fail and Fine Gael refused to work with it, citing its leftist policies and historic ties with militant group the Irish Republican Army during three decades of violence in Northern Ireland.

Though Sinn Fein, which aims to reunite Northern Ireland with the independent Republic of Ireland, could become the largest party in the Dail, it may struggle to get enough coalition partners to form a government. During the election campaign, both Fine Gael and Fianna Fail maintained they would not go into government with it.

The party, which had urged people to vote for change, hailed the result after the exit poll was released.

“There is every chance that Sinn Fein will emerge from these elections as the largest political party,” Sinn Fein director of elections Matt Carthy told broadcaster RTE on Friday night.

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Lawless reported from London.