Voting began on Friday morning in Ireland’s general election amid a tight race between the incumbent coalition parties and the opposition party Sinn Fein.
The polls opened at 7 a.m. (0800 CET) and are scheduled to close at 10 p.m.
The ballot will see a total of 174 seats of the lower chamber of parliament — the Dail — being filled, which is more than ever before.
Over 3 million voters are registered to cast their ballot in an election that has been focused on the country’s cost-of-living and housing crises, the response to an uptick in immigration, and economic management for potential future trade shocks.
Which parties are contesting?
Opinion polls put the country’s three big parties — center-right Fine Gael and Fianna Fail, and the leftist-nationalist Sinn Fein — each at around 20%.
Fine Gael and Fianna Fail — two parties that came up from opposing sides of the Irish civil war in the 1920s — set aside a nearly century-old rivalry and agreed to share power after the general election in 2020 saw an inconclusive result.
Sinn Fein — which won the popular vote in 2020 — failed to run enough candidates, meaning it did not secure enough seats in the Dail to be given a chance to form government.
Sinn Fein’s leader Mary Lou McDonald has fielded many more candidates this time around and has called on Irish voters to elect a government of change without Fine Gael or Fianna Fail.
Snap vote
Friday’s vote comes after Irish prime minister and Fine Gael’s leader Simon Harris called a snap election earlier this month.
In April, Harris became Ireland’s youngest ever taoiseach, or prime minister, at age 37 after replacing his predecessor Leo Varadkar.
He is popularly touted as the “TikTok taoiseach” for being social media savvy, an advantage he has used to re-invigorate Fine Gael.
Fine Gael showed a solid lead as it entered the election campaign.
However, the party suffered a setback after a video of Harris appearing to be rude and dismissive to a care worker on the campaign trail went viral.
When the snap election was called, Sinn Fein was also marred by a series of controversies, which include former party members writing job references for a colleague who was later convicted of child sex crimes.   Â
An exit poll late on Thursday night is expected to give a picture of what Ireland’s political landscape will look like for the next five years.
The calculations to form a majority could be tricky with several smaller parties and many independents potentially vying for a place in government.
dvv/zc (AFP, dpa)
