9:41am Tuesday With all 174 seats declared, it’s 48 FF, 39 SF, 38 FG, 11 Labour, 11 Social Democrats, four Independent Ireland, three People Before Profit, two Aontu, one Green, 16 independents and one other. Adding FF and FG gives 86 seats for the two main conservative parties, only two short of a majority. They’ll retain their governing coalition with support from either Independent Ireland or some of the independents.
9:16am Monday With 130 of 174 seats declared it’s 34 FF, 30 SF, 29 FG, nine Social Democrats, eight Labour, three Independent Ireland (right-wing), three People before Profit, two Aontu (conservative, anti-abortion), one Green and 11 independents. Final vote shares were 21.9% FF, 20.8% FG, 19.0% SF, under 5% for various other parties and 13.2% for independents.
10:50pm There’s still one electorate that hasn’t yet reported its first preference count. So far 46 of the 174 seats have been declared, with FF and FG both doing better than SF.
10:40am It’s now 11:40pm Saturday in Ireland, and nearly 15 hours after counting started there are still four of 43 electorates that haven’t yet completed their first preference counts. I don’t think pre-poll or postal votes were allowed, so this is slow progress.
9:53am With 36 of 43 electorates having completed their first preference count, SF is down 6.0% from 2020 and the Greens down 4.5%. The biggest gainer is the right-wing Independent Ireland (up 3.6%, new), with the Social Democrats up 2.4% and the conservative Aontu up 2.1%. The two main conservative parties, FF and FG, are roughly flat compared with 2020.
6:49am Sunday With 20 of 43 electorates having completed their first preference counts, SF is down 6.9% from 2020 on a matched electorate basis and the Greens are down 4.9%. The gains are going to independents (up 4.0%) and other small parties, with FF and FG both down 1%. Completed electorates so far are mainly in Dublin, so overall vote shares still look close between the top three parties. But a 6.9% swing against SF from 2020 would give them only 17.6%.
11:02pm With all votes counted in Dublin Central, SF leader Mary Lou McDonald has 20%, which is down 16% from what she got in this seat in 2020. If this is repeated in other seats, SF will do much worse than polls indicate. There won’t be official results posted until all first preference counting has been completed in an electorate.
9:46pm Irish broadcaster RTE has a live blog with reports of counts of ballot boxes that have been opened so far. However, I can’t see any information about the overall totals, only information on particular electorates presented without any swing info.
Guest post by Adrian Beaumont, who joins us from time to time to provide commentary on elections internationally. Adrian is a paid election analyst for The Conversation. His work for The Conversation can be found here, and his own website is here.
The Irish election was held on Friday, but vote counting doesn’t start until 9am Saturday in Ireland (8pm AEDT). Ireland uses the Hare-Clark proportional system that is used in Australia for Tasmanian and ACT elections. At this election there will be 174 members elected in 43 multi-member electorates, with three to five members per electorate. It will take at least a few days to get the final number of MPs for each party.
Ireland has been governed for most of its history by one of two rival conservative parties: Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil. After the 2020 election, these two parties formed a coalition government for the first time in Ireland’s history, with the Greens also included. The left-wing Sinn Féin had won the most votes in 2020 with 24.5%, the first time in almost a century that neither FG nor FF had won the most votes.
In Irish polls, SF support had surged to a peak of about 35% in May 2022, but since November 2023, SF support has slumped back to about 18%, behind both FF and FG. Pre-election polls suggest SF support has recovered slightly, and there’s a three-way tie between the leading parties, but the two conservative parties are likely to form a coalition government.
US election near-final results
With nearly all votes counted for the November 5 US election, Donald Trump won the presidency by 312 electoral votes to 226 for Kamala Harris. Trump swept the seven key states of Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, Wisconsin and Michigan. He won the popular vote by 49.8-48.3 (77.15 million votes to 74.75 million). In 2020 Joe Biden had defeated Trump by 306 electoral votes to 232 on a popular vote margin of 51.3-46.8 (81.3 million votes to 74.2 million).
All 435 House of Representatives seats are up for election every two years. Republicans won the House by a narrow 220-215 margin, a two-seat gain for Democrats since the 2022 midterms.
Each of the 50 states has two senators, with one-third up for election every two years. Before this election, Democrats and allied independents held a 51-49 Senate majority, but they were defending 23 of the 33 seats up, including three in states Trump won easily. Republicans gained these three seats and also Pennsylvania, to take a 53-47 Senate majority. But Democrats defended their seats in four of the five presidential key states that also held Senate elections.
UK news and polls
On November 2, Kemi Badenoch was elected Conservative leader, defeating Robert Jenrick in a Conservative members’ vote by 56.5-43.5. Both candidates had qualified by not getting eliminated in the rounds of Conservative MPs’ votes.
Labour’s lead has dropped quickly, and they’re in a rough tie with the Conservatives, with two recent polls giving the Conservatives a lead. Reform has about 18%, the Liberal Democrats 12% and the Greens 8%. In other news, there’s a push by Labour MPs to change the electoral system from first past the post to proportional representation.
Lithuania, Moldova, Bulgaria and Romania
Of the 141 Lithuanian seats, 71 are elected in single-member electorates using a two-round system and the remaining 70 by national PR. At October 13 and 27 elections, the centre-left LSDP won 52 seats (up 39 since 2020), the conservative TS-LKD 28 (down 22), the populist PPNA 20 (new), the green DSVL 14 (new) and a green-conservative party eight (down 24). The LSDP formed a governing coalition with the PPNA and DSVL.
At the November 3 Moldovan presidential runoff, the pro-western incumbent defeated the pro-Russian candidate by a 55.4-44.6 margin.
Owing to failure to form a lasting government, there have been six elections in Bulgaria since 2021, with the latest on October 27. PR in multi-member electorates was used to allocate the 240 seats with a 4% national threshold. It appears unlikely that a government will be formed after this election.
In the first round of the Romanian presidential election on November 24, a far-right and pro-Russsia independent topped the poll with 22.9%, followed by a pro-EU candidate on 19.18%, a centre-left candidate on 19.15% and another right-wing candidate on 13.9%. A recount is being held to determine who finishes second and proceeds to the December 8 runoff.
An exit poll by RTÉ/TG4/Irish Times:
1st preference
Sinn Féin 21.1
Fine Gael 21
Fianna Fáil 19.5
Minor Left:
Social Democrat 5.8
Labour 5
Green 4
Aontú 3.6
People Before Profit 3.1
Independents 12.7
Independent Ireland (far right) 2.2
Others 1.9
2nd preference: (optional preferencing)
Sinn Féin 17
Fine Gael 20
Fianna Fáil 20
Minor Left:
Social Democrat 5
Labour 6
Green 3
Aontú 4
People Before Profit 3
Independents 14
Independent Ireland (far right) 3
Others 2
The combined left vote is just over 42% and a FF/FG coalition looks likely but would require the support of more than 1 soft left party and possibly some independents who are mostly rural conservatives. I think this would be unstable but I thought the same when FF and FG went into coalition after being enemies for 100 years and the government has run close to its full term.
If these exit polls are true, Ireland might be one of the few Western democracies where the swing against the incumbent government post-Covid didn’t really apply, or otherwise the anti-incumbent swing is starting to weaken, at least against right wing governments.
K
Until 6 months ago the fall of the government seemed certain but SF as a progressive party with a nationalist basis was perfectly wedged on 2 issues.
1. The immigration/refugee crisis where their response satisfied no one
2. The referendums to remove non-inclusive language from the constitution. They support and continue to support the referendum alienating some of their base who saw the referendums as too “woke”. Mary-Lou McDonald seemed unable to give a coherent message on these questions.
That said the party was wracked by a series of minor sex scandals in the last 6 weeks, which helped Harris in his decision to go to the polls slightly early, and 20% is a significant improvement on the recent predictions.
Labour was the traditional 3rd party which has occasionally got >20% and been a traditional coalition partner but they have been well and truly Pasokified by SF.
So for the moment the monopoly of power held by the parties formed after the Civil War will continue, although now they must join together rather than play out their faux competition. It is also true that the fractionation of Irish politics is now established and neither of the 3 major parties looks like forming a majority government in future.
Further details of the exit polls here:
https://www.rte.ie/news/2024/1130/1483874-general-election-tracker/
A remarkable age differentiation with SF scoring well into the 30s with people under 35. A generation with no memory of when SF was extra-constitutional.
Mary-Lou McDonald and Micheál Martin tied on most favoured Taoiseach with McDonald having significant support with under 35s
https://www.rte.ie/news/election-24/2024/1130/1483883-exit-poll-taoiseach-preference/
Regional differentiation in the exit poll:
At a regional level, it suggests that Sinn Féin has 21% in Dublin, followed by Fine Gael on 17%, Fianna Fáil on 14%, Social Democrats on 9%, Labour on 8%, People Before Profit-Solidarity on 7%, the Green Party on 6%, Aontu on 4%, other smaller parties on 3% and Independent Ireland on 1%.
In Connacht/Ulster Sinn Féin is also the biggest party based on first preferences, according to the exit poll, with 29% support compared to 21% for Fine Gael, 18% for Fianna Fáil, 6% for Independent Ireland, 3% for Aontú, 2% each for the Green Party, other smaller parties and People Before Profit-Solidarity, Labour at 1% and 0% for the Social Democrats.
In Munster, Fianna Fáil is the biggest party according to the exit poll at 25%, followed by Fine Gael at 22%, Sinn Féin at 16%, the Social Democrats at 8%, Labour at 5%, the Green Party at 4%, Independent Ireland at 3%, People Before Profit-Solidarity and Aontú at 2% each, and 1% for other smaller parties.
In the rest of Leinster excluding Dublin, it is Fine Gael which the exit poll says is in the lead on 23%, followed by Fianna Fáil on 21%, Sinn Féin on 20%, Labour and Aontú on 5% each, the Social Democrats on 4%, the Green Party on 3%, People Before Profit-Solidarity and other smaller parties on 2% and Independent Ireland on 0%.
Irish elections desperately need a William Bowe or Antony Green. No projections, swings, breakdowns by booth or any of the cool stuff we’re used to here in Australia. One exit poll from last night (Irish time) and one seat declared, the Speaker (Ceann Comhairle) who is automatically returned. Sure, there’s lots of random results and talking heads, but no aggregation. Oh well!
None of these figures are official yet but are based on the “tallies” of scrutineers. The actual numbers, in the English style are announced by the returning officer in a declaration ceremony after each count. These should start occurring within the next hour and analysis will then be easier.
After 20/43 1st counts declared
FF 2o.8% -0.7 (on 2020)
FG 2o.6 -1.0
SF 20.1 -6.9
Greens (a current government member) look like they will be wiped out. Labour and Soc Dems each up by 1%
Ringo Juggernaut
+1 trying to work out the result is doing my head in.
Soc
Wait until they try to form government- that will make this look easy
SF vote continues to fall but they don’t seem to be losing seats. Possibly they have learnt the lesson from the last election when they had too few candidates and saw their surpluses go to other parties.
It should be noted that the border counties, where they are strong, have not reported yet
Meath West the first electorate to be completed
1 SF
1 Aontu
1 FF
FG lose a seat to FF
Dún Laoghaire (which surprisingly is pronounced Done Leary) is the 2nd complete electorate
FG 2
PBP 1
FF 1
Greens lose a seat to FG
Only in Ireland
The returning officer in Donegal was giving the first count in Irish with RTÉ unable to translate the results to its board. The fire siren went off and she very suddenly found the English to direct the evacuation.
In any case , while waiting for the siren to stop, Pearse Doherty (SF) has apparently scored the highest primary vote in the country. Hopefully he will challenge Mary Lou for the leadership.
1 am in Dublin and the RTE TV coverage has closed although 4 counting centres are continuing with 2 still to give the first count.
At the end of the 1st day:
Seats: 31/174 decided
Sinn Féin 7
Fine Gael 9
Fianna Fáil 6 (incl the Ceann Comhairle (speaker) automatically reelected)
Minor Left:
Social Democrat 0
Labour 0
Green 0
Aontú 1
People Before Profit 1
Independents 5
Independent Ireland 2
First Preferences (so far):
Sinn Féin 18.7 (-5.6 on 2020)
Fine Gael 20.7 (=)
Fianna Fáil 21.6 (-0.4)
Minor Left:
Social Democrat 4.7 (+2.1)
Labour 4.8 (+0.3)
Green 3.1 (-4.1)
Aontú 3.8 (+2.0)
People Before Profit 2.9 (+0.2)
Independents 13.8 (0.9)
Independent Ireland (far right) 3.6 (new)
Others 2.3 (+1.0)
This is a lost opportunity by SF as the civil war parties will continue in coalition as there is not sufficient seats for an all left coalition. FF and FG might try to get support from the soft left but this is fraught with danger for the small parties, as the wipe out of the Greens, the current small coalition party shows. A similar fate has fallen on the Progressive Democrats and to a degree Labour in the past.
The support of conservative independents is possible depending on the final state of the seats.
Tensions between FF and FG will also need to be resolved. It appears FF will be significantly stronger and may no longer agree to rotating the Taoiseach.
More will be apparent when counting restarts at 10pm tonight (AEST)
After RTÉ stopped at 1 am some of the Munster electorates kept counting to completion. Cork South West ended after 3 am (an 18+ hr shift)
So starting the 2nd day of the count:
Seats: 41/174 decided
Sinn Féin 8
Fine Gael 11
Fianna Fáil 11 (incl. the Ceann Comhairle (speaker) automatically reelected)
Minor Left:
Social Democrat 1
Labour 0
Green 0
Aontú 1
People Before Profit 1
Independents 5
Independent Ireland 3
Getting towards the end of Day 2 of the count and 133/147 seats have been declared:
Sinn Féin 31
Fine Gael 30
Fianna Fáil 34 (incl. the Ceann Comhairle (speaker) automatically reelected)
Minor Left:
Social Democrat 9
Labour 8
Green 1
Aontú 2
People Before Profit 3
Independents 11
Independent Ireland 4
There is now speculation that the Lickspittles will get to a majority (88) without the need for support from the soft left but with the confidence and supply of some rural conservative independents.
174 seats not 147
At the end of the 2nd day of counting:
162/174
Sinn Féin 36
Fine Gael 36
Fianna Fáil 43 (incl. the Ceann Comhairle (speaker) automatically reelected)
Minor Left:
Social Democrat 11
Labour 9
Green 1
Aontú 2
People Before Profit 3
Independents 16
Independent Ireland 4
Other 1 (100% Redress) (sure, isn’t it your fellow who is worried about the quality of bricks in Donegal)
Steven Donnelly, the FF health minister, who some saw as Taoiseach material has lost his seat in Wicklow but will no doubt be nominated to the Senate next month.
FF/FG will be close but are unlikely to get to the magic number of 88. Labour has said that they will go into government but their offer may not be needed.
This riveting exercise should finish early on day 3
Thanks Oakeshott
Good to see Ireland has been spared a (very) hard left government (not to mention SF’s longstanding entwinement with the terrorists) for another term anyway.
BTSays,
“Thanks Oakeshott
Good to see Ireland has been spared a (very) hard left government (not to mention SF’s longstanding entwinement with the terrorists) for another term anyway.”
That right wing petticoat is almost down to your knees now.
None of the 3 major parties can claim to be free of a history of terrorism – the difference is the year when they accepted the compromise of a partitioned Ireland
Oakeshott
There’s no comparison in recent history with that of Sinn Fein’s, regardless of semantics. Perhaps the DUP and further right loyalist parties in Northern Ireland, but this is Eire we’re talking about here not Ulster.
No point glossing it over, many with those close links are still active in the party including some TDs. That’s not like the FG or FF TDs.
I don’t think there are many TDs left who did jail time, unlike 10 years ago. There was a fairly brutal clean out. When Martina Anderson lost pre-selection for the Assembly, her sister wrote “The British could not do to our Martina what her comrades and friends have done,”.
In any case eventually parties willing to take part in constitutional politics are accepted into the fold. Certainly this was the case with Fianna Fáil although Fine Gael (whatever it was called before it merged with the Blue Shirts) unsuccessfully ran a “Shadow of the Gunman” campaign for a few elections. FF was led by civil war fighters well into the 1970s
The exit poll details were interesting in that SF had a strong following in the under 35s -well over 30%, perhaps a generation with no memory of its extra constitutional period.
Late on day 3 of the count and still waiting for the distribution of a surplus in Cavan-Monaghan but the result is clear that the final 2 seats will go to FF.
So the final result:
Sinn Féin 39
Fine Gael 38
Fianna Fáil 48 (incl. the Ceann Comhairle (speaker) automatically reelected)
Minor Left:
Social Democrat 11
Labour 11
Green 1
Aontú 2
People Before Profit 3
Independents 16
Independent Ireland 4
Other 1 (100% Redress)
The lickspittles will fall short by 2 seats with FF in a much stronger position than FG. Will they form an alliance with Labour or SDs, experience shows that this is risky for the minor partner, or will they find some compliant independents?
Oakeshott, why are you counting Aontu as minor left? Wikipedia says they’re socially conservative and anti-abortion.
Hi Adrian, thank you for this thread – I hoped there might be more interaction with other PBers but Ireland is currently not in the spotlight.
Until this election, Aontu were a one man band, Paeder Toibin (my keyboard doesn’t do diacritics). He was expelled from Sinn Fein when he crossed the floor on their motion for liberal abortion laws. I have thought of him as socially conservative but economically progressive in the SF mould. Their web site looks that way and Toibin has also said it is centre-left. Unification is also high on his agenda as Aontu is one of the few parties other than SF which is on both sides of the border.
One of the elected independents also left SF over abortion’
That said I’ve heard that Sarah O’Reilly who missed out on the last seat in Cavan-Monaghan used to be in FG but I can’t confirm.
Thanks Oakeshott
Obviously not much love lost between SF and Aontu as it said that SF’s transfers went 3:1 Fianna Fail over Aontu!
FF up 10 seats so a particularly improved result for them, along with Labour and Social Dems. And a terrible one for Greens.
Aontú preferences or lack there of prevented SF winning a further MEP seat at the last European election. Toibin has said some fairly devastating things about SF but also FF/FG and ruled out ever going into government with them. I have seen commentary that his views would have been orthodox in SF before Gerry Adams took over in the early 80s.
I think all the parties would dread Aontú getting the BOP as it has taken 40 years to get to the current consensus on abortion (which is still not very liberal)
OC. I wanted to participate in the thread but the count was so slow that I got bored.
Also,it was clear from early in the count that Ireland has now joined the growing list of countries where the growing segmentation of the vote means that from election to election you go from one coalition to another, wirh most of the change taking place bring in terms of which minor parties are in or out. Once again we will almost certainly have a coalition between FF and FG. Whoopdedoo.
Perhaps it’s the case, as PJK said, that when you change the government you change the country But sometimes there’s no way of changing the government, even in a democracy.
But at least there seems to have been a bit of a swing away from the far left, which I’m always in favour of.
MB
Agree with much of that but after 102 years of basically the same government under a variety of names, democracy may have been better served by a change in direction.
If Northern Ireland, a more conservative jurisdiction, has not sunk under the sea with a SF led government, I am sure the Republic would survive the experience.
“If Northern Ireland, a more conservative jurisdiction, has not sunk under the sea with a SF led government, I am sure the Republic would survive the experience.”
Except that that’s a really bad comparison. In Northern Ireland, by law SF is in government with all the other main parties and has a DUP (their political reverse) deputy Premier who has equal powers to the SF Premier.
Therefore SF, like DUP and any other party that’s had leadership in the province since power-sharing was first agreed, is constrained from introducing their own party’s policies ad lib and it often seems like they’re not doing much more than manage the budget as consensus is required for all major decisions.
So it’s nothing whatever like a minority party leading a government in a regular democracy such as Republic of Ireland.
BT
While coalitions are mandated by law in NI, for the foreseeable future they are electorally mandated in the Republic.
While the left is split between SF and a plethora of minor parties, government requires 2 out of 3 of the majors to form coalition. This is the new reality since FF and FG’s combined vote went from the 70s to barely 40. A SF lead government would be constrained by its partners. The other beauty of the Irish constitution is the reserve power of the President to refer doubtful legislation directly to the High Court.
The checks and balances are stronger than they were under FF in the 70s when a majority government considered invading NI
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exercise_Armageddon and most likely attempted to arm the IRA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_Crisis