“The Soldiers of Fortune” have won again

The 24 May elections to the lower house of the Irish parliament, the Dail, were won by the right-of-centre Fianna Fail Party which has ruled the country since 1997 and is led by Prime Minister Bertie Ahern. 

The Soldiers of Fortune (that is an exact translation from the Irish of the party's name, Fianna Fail) secured their third successive election victory in quite convincing fashion - they won 78 seats in the 166-seat assembly, compared to 81 in the 2002 elections. Despite Fianna Fail's reassertion of its dominant position on the Irish political scene, the party's success was seriously overshadowed by the collapse of its traditional ally. The Progressive Democrats, who were the Soldiers of Fortune's partners in the outgoing coalition, managed to win only two seats, compared to eight in the last elections, thereby seriously complicating Bertie Ahern's job of forming a ruling coalition. Now he has to build a basically new political coalition, to look for support from partners with whom his party would not previously have allied itself. Fianna Fail's main rival, Fine Gael, is unlikely to become a partner; Ireland's leading opposition party Fine Gael won 51 seats in parliament, a significant improvement on its previous showing of 31. Labour now have 20 seats (21 in the last parliament), the Greens six (six), independent candidates five (14) and Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, four (five). Bertie Ahern might hold political consultations with the latter four parties.

The start of the election campaign in Ireland gave the impression that it was not a contest between right-wing and left-wing policies, but a battle between two personalities - 55-year-old Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, at the helm of state for the past decade, and the 56-year-old leader of the opposition Fine Gael Party, Enda Kenny. Their portraits hung on all the main streets of Dublin and Ireland's other major cities. Polls conducted a week before the elections showed that the personal rating of the prime minister remained as before noticeably higher than Enda Kenny's level of popularity. This was largely a result of Bertie Ahern's effective economic and social policy and also of his contribution to the peace process in Ulster, for which Ahern was the first Irish leader to receive the honour of addressing both houses of the British Parliament.

As election day approached, it became clearer that the voters would choose not so much between individuals as between manifestoes. Therefore, Mr Ahern, who is known as the Teflon prime minister because scandals do not stick to him, stressed the successes of his government: an unprecedented boom in the economy and low taxes. Ireland today leads the EU statistics in many areas and as a result is often referred to as the "Celtic tiger". Corporation tax (12.5 per cent) and income tax are amongst the lowest in the EU, while Ireland is the second EU country, behind Luxembourg, in terms of per capita GDP ($43,500). Exports in this country of just four million people reached $120bn in 2006, with imports of just $87bn, and budget revenue was $75bn. Fine Gael, which has been in power for only two and a half of the past 20 years and has no real achievements to its name, therefore made criticism of the overcrowded hospitals and poor medical care for children its focus. If he won, Enda Kenny promised to tackle these problems, in particular to increase the number of clinics and make medical treatment free for children under five. The Irish appreciated all the more the real achievements of the right-of-centre camp, rather than the unconfirmed promises of the left.

Bertie Ahern has already said that his party has enough options to form a majority in the lower house. He stated, however, that maintaining stability was his main priority. He is probably implying that he does not want to join an alliance with the nationalist Sinn Fein, which was recently successful in the Northern Ireland elections. Sinn Fein, led by Gerry Adams, which used to have five seats, has more than once openly stated its desire to join the ruling coalition. Many of the Irish are not against this, but many experts said that the Progressive Democrats and the independents were the only political forces that Fianna Fail could rely on. Labour and the Greens declare themselves allies of Fine Gael. The Greens, who had six seats in the outgoing, 29th, parliament, are inclined towards a coalition with opposition Fine Gael and Labour.

Mr Ahern himself, who in many ways helped Gerry Adams' party into the Ulster parliament, made it clear that he does not want to see it in his own coalition. He gave the reason as Sinn Fein's far left economic platform, rather than its links with the Irish Republican Army, and ruled out union with Sinn Fein and the left-wing parties. It looks as though Bertie Ahern is calculating on winning over Labour. The combination of the prime minister's Soldiers of Fortune and the Progressive Democrats, which won 80 seats, with Labour, which lost a seat, would be the only coalition with an absolute majority. Experts are convinced that Labour could change its tune and refuse an alliance with Enda Kenny's party in favour of joining the ruling coalition. The head of Dublin's leading bookmakers, Paddy Power, says that the Irish have put most money on an alliance of Fianna Fail and Labour.