INTERNATIONAL

Irish general election: Sinn Féin tops first preference poll

(UTV| Ireland election 2020) – Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald has described the Irish general election as “something of a revolution in the ballot box”.

Counting is continuing and the first results have come in, with Sinn Féin winning the most first preference votes.

With all first preferences counted, it has 24.5% compared to 22.2% for Fianna Fáil and 20.9% for Fine Gael.

No one party will win enough seats for an outright majority.

Polling in the election closed at 22:00 local time on Saturday.

Ballot boxes from across the 39 constituencies were opened at 09:00 on Sunday.

Many counts have finished for the night and will resume at 10:00 on Monday, but some are continuing.

Sinn Féin ran 42 candidates across the 39 multi-seat constituencies, about half that of both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, which will have a knock-on effect on the number of seats it can secure in the 160-seat Dáil (Irish parliament) where 80 seats are needed for a majority.

What kind of government could be formed?

Once the final number of seats for each party is known, leaders will try to form a coalition government in order to avoid another general election.

Before the election both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil said they would not enter coalition with Sinn Féin.

Arriving at the RDS count centre in Dublin on Sunday afternoon, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said she was exploring options to see if it would be possible to form a government without either Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil.

On Sunday evening taoiseach (Irish PM) and Fine Gael leader Leo Varadkar said it would be “challenging” to form a government.

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