Ireland: two days before the vote, Sinn Fein in the lead for the first time

Audio 03:29

By: Emeline Vin

The Irish are preparing to vote to elect their new Parliament and, by extension, their new government. While the campaign has mainly revolved around the price of housing, access to health and retirement, there is hardly any winning potential to emerge.

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The Irish will have to be patient before knowing the name of their future Prime Minister. This Saturday February 8 marks only the beginning of the first episode. Once the 160 deputies have been elected, negotiations will begin to form a government. Large-scale negotiations since, since 1979, no party has managed to obtain an absolute majority and Ireland is generally led by a coalition. In addition, these talks can sometimes take time, as in 2016 when we had to wait 63 days.

Home stretch

Three competitors stand out clearly. The outgoing, first: the Fine Gael, led by Prime Minister Leo Varadkar. He is banking on the success of the Brexit negotiations to make people forget the quality of life. His lifelong rival is the Fianna Fail, slightly less liberal and more conservative. At its head Micheal Martin. This is his third election as an aspiring Prime Minister. We could paraphrase his slogan as " change is now ".

And then, the outsider is Sinn Féin, led by Mary Lou McDonald . Sinn Féin is the nationalist party, rather of the left, which defends the reunification of the two Ireland. In a century, it has not been part of a single government and since the start of the campaign, everyone promises that there will be no coalition with Sinn Féin. In particular because of its links with the terrorist organization of the IRA. But also because of the functioning of this somewhat peculiar political formation: all decisions pass through the central committee of the party and the elected officials have, ultimately, only little latitude.

However, the latest polls give Sinn Féin in the lead, ahead of the Fianna Fail and the outgoing Fine Gael, neck and neck.

Without alliance, Sinn Féin would miss first place

But these trends are, like any survey, to be taken with tweezers. Especially since the voting system is a bit special. Voters rank candidates in order of preference. During the count, the ballots are distributed according to choice number 1. At the end of the first round, we eliminate the one who received the least number of votes, we take back his ballots and we distribute them again according to the candidates ranked n ° 2 , And so on.

However, the voters of Sinn Féin place him in choice number 1 or not at all. The party therefore risks not benefiting from carryover of votes. In addition, he presented only forty candidates, too few to lead the next coalition. If the parties maintain their line " no partnership with the SF ", they will have to turn to more traditional coalition partners: the Labor, the Greens or the Independents. Precisely, non-inserts represented the third force in the outgoing legislature.

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