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| Fianna Fáil rules out Fine Gael coalition as Irish election count continues | Fianna Fáil rules out Fine Gael coalition as Irish election count continues |
| (about 1 hour later) | |
| Fianna Fáil, which is expected to emerge as the main winner in Ireland’s most uncertain general election for decades, has ruled out a coalition with Fine Gael, as votes continue to be counted. | Fianna Fáil, which is expected to emerge as the main winner in Ireland’s most uncertain general election for decades, has ruled out a coalition with Fine Gael, as votes continue to be counted. |
| Fianna Fáil, the main opposition party before the election, will also not seek to form an alternative coalition with Sinn Féin, which is hovering at 14-15% of the vote and will secure more than 20 deputies in the next Dáil – the best ever performance for Gerry Adams’s party in the Irish Republic. | |
| Senior sources in Fianna Fáil, which expects to double its representation from 21 TDs in the last parliament to around 41 this time, said they would resist pressure to force them into government with their old Irish civil war enemies Fine Gael. | Senior sources in Fianna Fáil, which expects to double its representation from 21 TDs in the last parliament to around 41 this time, said they would resist pressure to force them into government with their old Irish civil war enemies Fine Gael. |
| “It doesn’t suit Fianna Fáil to enter into government and hand over the leadership of the opposition to Sinn Féin. And Micheál Martin [the Fianna Fáil leader] will not countenance going into government with Sinn Féin. If Fine Gael are the biggest single party, it will be up to them to find partners among the independents and smaller parties,” one party source told the Guardian. | “It doesn’t suit Fianna Fáil to enter into government and hand over the leadership of the opposition to Sinn Féin. And Micheál Martin [the Fianna Fáil leader] will not countenance going into government with Sinn Féin. If Fine Gael are the biggest single party, it will be up to them to find partners among the independents and smaller parties,” one party source told the Guardian. |
| Fine Gael entered the election alongside its coalition partner Labour with the biggest majority in the history of the Irish state. But this contest has proven to be disastrous for both parties. In the 2011 election, Fine Gael was returned with 73 seats and Labour with 33. This time it is expected Fine Gael will get over 50 while Labour will struggle to get into double digits. | Fine Gael entered the election alongside its coalition partner Labour with the biggest majority in the history of the Irish state. But this contest has proven to be disastrous for both parties. In the 2011 election, Fine Gael was returned with 73 seats and Labour with 33. This time it is expected Fine Gael will get over 50 while Labour will struggle to get into double digits. |
| Former Fine Gael luminaries say part of the blame for the party’s poor showing is popular anger over austerity policies imposed in the early years of the coalition government to plug a multibillion-euro gap in the national finances. | Former Fine Gael luminaries say part of the blame for the party’s poor showing is popular anger over austerity policies imposed in the early years of the coalition government to plug a multibillion-euro gap in the national finances. |
| The former leader Alan Dukes also criticised the party’s election strategy, especially the focus on the need to protect the economic recovery when so many voters had not yet experienced any upturn. | The former leader Alan Dukes also criticised the party’s election strategy, especially the focus on the need to protect the economic recovery when so many voters had not yet experienced any upturn. |
| “In some ways it’s not surprising that the vote was down given all that has happened in the last five years but it’s a bit of a shock to find out that it’s quite down so far,” Dukes said. “I think it’s partly a reaction to what had to be done over the last five years. As the president of the European commission [Jean-Claude Juncker ] said some time ago, we know what to do, the trouble is getting re-elected after we do it, and I think there is a very strong element of that here. | “In some ways it’s not surprising that the vote was down given all that has happened in the last five years but it’s a bit of a shock to find out that it’s quite down so far,” Dukes said. “I think it’s partly a reaction to what had to be done over the last five years. As the president of the European commission [Jean-Claude Juncker ] said some time ago, we know what to do, the trouble is getting re-elected after we do it, and I think there is a very strong element of that here. |
| “Also, there were some problems with the way that the campaign was run. Some of the messaging was not well handled. The campaign had a number of faults in it.” | “Also, there were some problems with the way that the campaign was run. Some of the messaging was not well handled. The campaign had a number of faults in it.” |
| Dukes was the architect of a political strategy in the late 1980s that saw Fine Gael support a minority Fianna Fáil government to allow the administration to deal with a recession. It earned credit for acting in the national interest. | |
| One option on the table for Martin, the Fianna Fáil leader, is to copy that strategy and allow a minority Fine Gael government to rule alongside independents while promising not to bring the coalition down in a confidence vote. | One option on the table for Martin, the Fianna Fáil leader, is to copy that strategy and allow a minority Fine Gael government to rule alongside independents while promising not to bring the coalition down in a confidence vote. |
| Another option would be to run a second general election. Sinn Féin’s Adams has told his party activists to prepare for that scenario. | |
| His deputy, Mary Lou McDonald, said Sinn Féin would not be a minority party in the next government. “We will not be the facilitators or enablers of Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael to run rampant across an unequal society. In other words, we are very different from Labour in that respect,” she said. | His deputy, Mary Lou McDonald, said Sinn Féin would not be a minority party in the next government. “We will not be the facilitators or enablers of Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael to run rampant across an unequal society. In other words, we are very different from Labour in that respect,” she said. |
| With 95 out of 158 Dáil seats filled by mid-morning on Sunday, the state of the parties was: Fine Gael 28, Fianna Fáil 28, independents 14, Sinn Féin 13, Labour 4, Anti-Austerity Alliance/People Before Profit 4, Social Democrats 3, Green party 2, and others 1. |