Ireland finally has a new Prime Minister. More than four months after the legislative elections in Ireland, the deputies elected, on Saturday 27 June, the leader of the center-right party Fianna Fail, Micheal Martin, at the head of a coalition government with the centrist rival Fine Gael and the Greens.

The members of these three formations gave the green light Friday to a coalition agreement without the nationalists of Sinn Fein, after months of negotiations in full epidemic.

The coalition government will have a rotating leadership. Micheal Martin, whose Fianna Fail party is the largest parliamentary group with 38 of the 160 seats, becomes the first head of government until December 2022. He succeeds Leo Varadkar, the leader of the centrist rival Fine Gael, who should become Prime Minister again after Micheal Martin, under the rotation system put in place.

After the vote of the deputies - exceptionally organized in a congress center of Dublin -, Micheal Martin went to Aras an Uachtarain, the residence of the Irish president Michael D. Higgins, who will officially name him Prime Minister or "Taoiseach".

Speaking just after his election, Micheal Martin said that fighting the pandemic would be his government's priority in the coming months.

"2,278 people on this island have lost their lives," said the new head of government. Despite "significant progress" since March, "the fight against the virus is not over," he said.

Micheal Martin explained that Ireland is facing the fastest recession that has ever hit it and that urgent measures are needed to allow an economic recovery.

The new Prime Minister also spoke of other challenges, which date from before Covid-19 and remain, such as access to affordable housing and the climate crisis.

"Historical" centrist alliance

The February elections had shaken up the political landscape in Ireland, where the two centrist parties had been in power for a century. This time, the Fine Gael and the Fianna Fail needed the support of the 12 Green Party deputies to reach the 80 seat threshold necessary for the constitution of a parliamentary majority.

Before the deputies, the leader of Fine Gael, Leo Varadkar, described as "historic" the alliance between the two centrist parties, whose rivalry dates back to the civil war of 1922. He said he was "impatient to serve in the government".

With a program anchored to the left, Sinn Fein, favorable to reunification with Northern Ireland, came out on top with 24.5% of the voters. But without having presented enough candidates, it only became the second political force in Parliament with 37 seats.

With AFP

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