Sinn Féin declares victory in Irish general election
Party leader Mary Lou McDonald calls for talks with main rivals to form coalition
Sinn Féin has declared victory in Ireland’s general election and called for talks with other main parties to form a coalition government.
Its leader, Mary Lou McDonald, urged Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil to start negotiations with the republican party as the scale of its breakthrough confirmed a realignment of Irish politics.
“Sinn Féin has won the election. We have won the popular vote,” McDonald said, as counting of votes to fill seats in Dáil Éireann, parliament’s lower house, continued in constituencies across the country.
With full results expected late on Monday or Tuesday, Leo Varadkar, the taoiseach and Fine Gael leader, faced a call from Paudie Coffey, a former Fine Gael TD and junior minister, to quit as party leader.
Simon Coveney called the voters’ verdict “harsh” but backed Varadkar’s continued leadership. Another senior party figure, Paschal Donohoe, said Fine Gael could end up forming another government.
Sinn Féin won 24.5% of the first-preference vote in Saturday’s election, almost doubling its share from the 2016 election after harnessing voter anger at homelessness, soaring rents and fraying public services.
Fine Gael slid to 20.9% and the main opposition party, Fianna Fáil, slipped to 22.2%, widely perceived as punishment for having propped up Varadkar’s minority administration in a confidence and supply deal.
The Greens, independents and small leftwing parties accounted for the rest. Turnout was 62.9%, down from 65.2% in the 2016 election.
The fragmented results will produce a hung parliament with no party close to 80 seats – the number for a majority and stable government in the 160-seat chamber, which includes a speaker.
Sinn Féin, having fielded too few candidates to fully translate support into seats, was expected to end up with about 36 seats, similar to Fine Gael. Fianna Fáil was expected to win 40, making its leader, Micheál Martin, the favourite to emerge as taoiseach after negotiations that could last weeks or even months.
McDonald told RTE her preference was to form a government without either of the two formerly biggest parties but that she would speak to Varadkar and Martin because “that’s what grownups do”.
She called for an end to the era of her party, formerly led by Gerry Adams, being frozen out of coalitions. “The democratic thing is for them to speak to me and stop this business of saying Sinn Féin can be put on the margin … So many people now have chosen us to represent them.”
Varadkar has ruled out a Fine Gael pact with Sinn Féin, citing its leftwing policies and past IRA links, and floated a centrist alliance with Fianna Fáil.
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During the campaign Martin said Fianna Fáil would not enter government with Fine Gael or Sinn Féin but since Sunday has sounded more flexible, suggesting either scenario could happen.
Dara Calleary, Fianna Fáil’s director of elections, told RTE his party would talk with Sinn Féin about a programme for government. “We will see what programme they put together. We certainly will engage with them, we are not going to refuse to talk to them.”
Brendan Howlin, the leader of the Labour party, which appeared on course for about half a dozen seats, said any viable government would need two of the big three parties.
“Ultimately we either have to have Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael together or Sinn Féin with one of those parties. That will happen in my judgment … I think that is the only stability that can be offered.” Another election would hurt Ireland, he said.
Bread and butter issues dominated the campaign, which virtually ignored Northern Ireland and Brexit, but Sinn Féin said it wished to promote its defining issue – a united Ireland – in any future government.
An exit poll found that 57% of people supported Sinn Féin’s desire to hold referendums on unity on both sides of the border in the next five years.
At a victory celebration in a Dublin count centre, Dessie Ellis, a re-elected Sinn Féin TD and former IRA member, joined supporters in singing the rebel song Come Out Ye Black and Tans. An election count officer in Galway asked jubilant Sinn Féin supporters to lower a tricolour, saying it was neither the time nor place for symbols.
Unionist leaders in Northern Ireland have so far largely refrained from commenting on Sinn Féin’s breakthrough.
One exception is Steve Aiken, the Ulster Unionist party leader, who called Sinn Féin a hard-left party “with a less than transparent relationship with its violent past”.
Ireland faced uncertainty, he said. “Our neighbours are living in interesting, if worrying, times.”
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