Ireland prepares for 3-week campaign to decide next prime minister

LONDON -- Ireland's President Michael Higgins dissolved Parliament Friday, clearing the way for a Nov. 29 election that will determine who controls government.

Prime Minister Simon Harris, who had until March to call an election, had announced the date Wednesday.

A historic coalition government led by Harris' center-right Fine Gael party and its center-left rival Fianna Fail has been in power since the 2020 race ended in a virtual dead heat.

“We did not agree on every issue but we did always work hard and together for the good of the Irish people,” Harris said. “The time is now right to ask the Irish people to give a new mandate.”

Fine Gael and Fianna Fail, which arose from opposing sides of Ireland’s 1920s civil war, shared a broadly centrist outlook and had alternated holding power to govern Ireland over the decades. The two set aside their differences in 2020 to work together, bringing the Green Party along as a junior partner.

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.

Harris took over when Varadkar stepped down earlier this year.

The left-wing nationalist Sinn Fein party had won the largest share of votes in the election but was shut out of government because it couldn't assemble enough support to govern. Sinn Fein has been shunned by centrist parties because of its historic links to the nationalist militants of the Irish Republican Army and decades of violence in Northern Ireland.

Sinn Fein said it was fielding more candidates in its effort to lead the government.

“After a century of Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, it is time to make that change, to give Sinn Fein the chance to lead and the chance to deliver,” said party President Mary-Lou McDonald. “In Sinn Fein you will get a government that will move heaven and earth to make housing affordable, to bring home ownership back into the reach of working people and to restore hope for a generation.”

Ireland, which has a population of 5.2 million, has faced many of the same challenges of other countries since its last election: the COVID-19 pandemic, economic disruptions due to the war in Ukraine and a surge of migrants from overseas.

Martin said the next five years would be challenging for the Irish economy, noting the impact from global conflicts and a potential change in U.S. trade policy change.

“The greatest threat to the Irish economy is external, and we need experience and we need leadership that has already demonstrated its capacity to weather significant events and shocks to lead us through the next challenging five years,” Martin said.

Harris said the coalition had protected people during coronavirus, supported Ukraine in its war and weathered the cost-of-living crisis.

Housing, immigration and childcare are some of the main issues for voters, he said.

He said he was pleased the government had set aside money to weather any future trade shocks.

“We used to be ridiculed for this,” Harris said. "This is exactly why we have the buffer that is there, is a trans-Atlantic shock or indeed any other shock to our economy, my children will never have to experience the austerity that our generation did.”

Ireland in 2010 faced national bankruptcy over the cost of saving its failing banks. It adopted an austerity program as one of the conditions for an international bailout but rebounded strongly after exiting the bailout in 2013.