As a result, four months of deadlock after the election was broken when the three largest parties, the third being left-wing Sinn Féin, all received just over 20 percent of the vote.

Sinn Fein, who was the opposition branch of the IRA's political branch, is being held out of government cooperation since it failed to create a left-wing government.

Halfway change

Sitting Prime Minister Leo Varadkar of Conservative Fine Gael leaves power, then gets it back halfway into the five-year term.

Right-wing Liberal Fianna Fáil party leader Micheál Martin will thus become prime minister, and is expected to be approved by Parliament on Saturday.

The two parties have previously been arch rivals, but managed to overcome the bitterness of history to rule together.

One reason was to keep the leftist nationalist Sinn Fein out of the circle of power, the Party nearly doubled its support compared to the election before and grew by ten percentage points. Party leader Mary Lou McDonald talked about a voter revolution right after the election.

Polarizing background

But the party's history, where it has been active in both Ireland and Northern Ireland, is polarizing. McDonald took over as party leader 201 ether Gerry Adams, one of the front figures in Northern Ireland's violent history.

Support party The Green Party delayed the decision to back the two parties, as the environmental party demanded that two-thirds of the members vote for the solution. In the vote, 76 percent said yes, while 24 percent voted against.

The environmental party was the second big surprise in the February election, where it increased by just over four percentage points.