(Adnkronos) – Ireland goes to the polls tomorrow for the general election that will renew the members of the Dáil Éireann, the lower house of parliament. The peculiarity of the Irish electoral system involves the use of the single transferable vote (STV), with multi-member constituencies with 3-5 seats each, whereby voters rank candidates in order of preference and votes are redistributed until seats are allocated. This election will see an increase in the number of seats available from 160 to 174, due to population growth.
The race, also judging by the polls, promises to be intense. The main parties, Fine Gael (FG) and Fianna Fáil (FF), both part of the current government coalition along with the Greens, are the favorites. But Sinn Fein, the former political wing of the IRA, is still hoping for a last-minute exploit, with leader Mary Lou McDonald saying she “sees a path to victory”, after this week’s polls showed that Fine Gael, the center-right party of Prime Minister Simon Harris, had dropped from first to third place and that Sinn Féin, the progressive, populist and left-wing party, had moved into second place, behind Fianna Fáil, coalition partner with FG.
“It is now very clear that there can be a government beyond Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, that for the first time we can have a Sinn Féin-led government,” McDonald said. Macdonald’s optimism seems to clash with the 12% obtained in the summer local elections, but seems justified, according to the Guardian, by the fact that even the governing coalition does not seem to enjoy great popularity.
Among the main themes of the election campaign have been tax policies, in particular the future of the Universal Social Charge (USC) tax, which some parties propose to abolish or reduce. Current polls indicate a balanced situation between FG, FF and Sinn Féin, with each party around 20% of the vote, while smaller formations like the Social Democrats and the Labour Party are aiming to consolidate their parliamentary presence. The majority needed to form a government is 81 seats.
