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Opposition Fine Gael set to win Irish election
Published in Saudi Press Agency on 26 - 02 - 2011

Awwal 23, 1432 H/Feb 26, 2011, SPA -- As counting of votes on Saturday continued in
Ireland's general election, opposition Fine Gael looked set to win
with the Labour Party also making huge gains.
But Fine Gael's Leo Varadker, who was elected in Dublin West,
conceded that Fine Gael, which exit polls place at 36.1 per cent, may
not win seats enough for an overall majority.
He said the party would probably be looking to Labour as a
coalition partner.
"We are seeing a huge shift," dpa quoted former Fine Gael leader Garret
FitzGerald as saying. "The last time anything happened on this scale was more
than 90 years ago," he told the Irish Times daily newspaper.
The first deputy to be elected to the Dail (Irish parliament) was
Joan Burton, who topped the poll in Dublin West, where Fianna Fail's
Finance Minister looked set to be one Fianna Fail member to retain
his seat in the capital.
The Labour Party, with 20.5 per cent according to exit polls,
was on course for its best-ever general election result and was
leading in Dublin.
"The immediate future is very challenging and those who voted in
such numbers for Labour have vested their hopes in the ballot they
have cast so decisively," said former Labour Party leader Pat
Rabbitte, the second candidate to be elected.
Ruling Fianna Fail, set to gain 15.1 per cent, was facing its
worst election result ever. The exit poll conducted for Ireland's
national broadcaster RTE indicated it had only 8 per cent support in
Dublin.
"This would be a dramatically horrible result for the Fianna Fail
party," said Frank Flannery, Fine Gael's deputy director of
elections.
Fianna Fail is set to have some high-profile casualties.
Deputy Prime Minister Mary Coughlan was expected to struggle to
hold on to her seat in Donegal in the north-west of the country.
Junior Ministers Pat Carey, Sean Haughey and Conor Lenihan were
set to lose their seats in Dublin.
Conor Lenihan said there was "an avalanche against Fianna Fلil
and while it did make mistakes it is paying the ultimate price."
Also paying the price for its coalition partnership with Fianna
Fail was the Green Party, expected to battle for the fourth seat in
North Dublin, its best chance of winning a seat.
A grouping of left-wing parties and candidates, United Left
Alliance, was doing well with Joe Higgins, Clare Daly and Richard
Boyd Barrett set to be elected.
The independent Shane Ross may top the poll in Dublin South.
Independents are expected to get 15.5 per cent of the vote.
Unofficial tallies at the counts and the available results broadly
bore out the results of RTE's exit poll, predicting that Fine Gael
would lead the next government with a gain of at least 72 seats.
That would mean party leader Enda Kenny replacing current Prime
Minister Brian Cowen, who resigned as leader of Fianna Fail at the
end of January following critisism of his handling of the country's
current financial crisis.
Fine Gael's election manager Phil Hogan has not yet conceded that
the party will not get an overall majority when the final results are
in.
There is a margin of error of 2.5 per cent in the RTE exit poll,
but results are usually very close to the mark.
Nationalist Sinn Fein support is placed at 10.1 per cent, a record
for the party.
Its President Gerry Adams is set to gain a seat south of the
border with Northern Ireland in Louth in the country's north-east
for the first time ever.
Final official results are expected by late Saturday or even
Sunday.


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