February 26, 2011: Early election results showed Ireland’s Fianna Fail party was facing the biggest collapse for any Irish party since independence from Britain in 1921.

Ireland sought help from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund which was the consequence for Fianna Fail’s defeat. This would make Ireland the first euro zone government to be brought down by the debt crisis.

Ireland’s main opposition parties prepared to form a coalition with a record majority after voters, incensed at a financial collapse and humiliating bailout, routed the government. Despite typical Irish temperment, Fine Gael and Labour are capable of working together and with a large enough majority should bring some stability back to Irish politics after the chaos of Fianna Fail. The presence of Labour may intensify calls to renegotiate the terms of the international bailout. Regardless of the mandate, the government will come under pressure if economic growth falters and it has to make further cuts.

Fianna Fail, a former goliath of Irish politics, will likely lose more than 50 seats and be left with aprroximately 20 lawmakers to share the opposition benches with a diverse group of anti-bailout independents and Sinn Fein, best known as the political wing of the now-dormant Irish Republican Army. The hard-left Sinn Fein party is set to possibly treble its presence in parliament to around 15 seats and its leader Gerry Adams, who was officially banned from speaking on Irish media until 1993, could top the poll in the border county of Louth. In Dublin, Fianna Fail was expected to retain just one seat out of a possible 47. The make-up of a new parliament will not be confirmed until manual counting finishes on Sunday.

The main opposition party Fine Gael stated it would most probably form a coalition with the centre-left Labour party. Fine Gael and Labour formed a joint platform in 2007. An exit poll from state broadcaster RTE put the centre-right Fine Gael on 36 percent of first preference votes under the system of proportional representation, its best result since 1982 but short of expectations for an outright victory. Under the RTE exit poll, Labour secured 20.5 percent of the vote, possibly giving it a record 35 seats.

Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny, Ireland’s longest-serving parliamentarian, is almost certain to become prime minister. The former primary school teacher will face immediate pressure to fulfil an election pledge to renegotiate the 85-billion-euro EU/IMF bailout and ease some of the burden on an electorate struggling to make ends meet. Fine Gael, like Fianna Fail a pro-business and low-tax party, has pledged to stick to the overall austerity targets laid down by the EU, but Labour wants an extra year to get the deficit under control and has taken a tougher line on renegotiating the interest rate charged by Brussels.

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January 22, 2011: Prime Minister Brian Cowen announced that he has resigned as leader of Ireland’s dominant Fianna Fail party but intends to keep leading the government through the March 11 election. Opposition chiefs demanded his immediate ouster as premier.

Cowen’s surprise move capped a week of political crises that brought his coalition government to the verge of collapse. Never before in Irish history has a politician sought to remain prime minister without being leader of the main government party.

Cowen, deeply unpopular because of Ireland’s stunning slide to the brink of bankruptcy, pledged that the short-term split in power would not “in any way affect our ability to do our business.” But opposition leaders decried his manoeuvr as an affront to democracy and vowed to expel Cowen from power in a no-confidence vote next week in parliament. Even some Fianna Fail lawmakers said Cowen should have admitted full defeat now and dissolved the entire parliament for a mid-February election.

Enda Kenny, leader of the main opposition Fine Gael party, said Cowen’s “attempt to remain as head of government despite losing the confidence of his own party is another sad example of Fianna Fail putting their own survival ahead of the country’s survival.” Kenny stated that if Cowen refuses to resign by Tuesday, Fine Gael will pursue an immediate vote of no confidence in parliament against his premiership.

Cowen stated he was confident of winning that vote despite his narrow and fluctuating parliamentary majority.

The other major opposition party, Labour, stated it would back the Fine Gael move. Labour Sen. Alex White said he found it “incredible beyond belief” that Cowen would promote government instability for the sake of trying to bolster Fianna Fail’s election chances. “What’s it going to take to prise these people’s hands off the levers of power? He (Cowen) shouldn’t be there for one more day,” White stated. Some Fianna Fail lawmakers agreed with the opposition’s frustrations, but stated they were obliged to vote to support Cowen.”I say this with the greatest of respect for Brian Cowen, but what he’s just done is pointless and counterproductive. It would be better to call a general election now,” stated Fianna Fail lawmaker Charlie O’Connor.

Since Thursday, a growing number of Fianna Fail lawmakers have been demanding Cowen’s resignation as party chief after he bungled an attempted pre-election Cabinet reshuffle. He accepted five back-to-back Cabinet resignations in a precalculated move to create vacancies for younger lawmakers.

But, inexplicably, Cowen failed to secure support beforehand from the other party in Cowen’s coalition government, the Greens, who received no warning of the mass resignations and vetoed his planned appointments of fresh faces as a cynical pre-election stunt. The Green Party instead humiliated Cowen, forcing him to announce a March 11 date for an election that the embattled premier had sought to delay since November.

Cowen insisted Saturday he had taken his decision to resign as party leader only that morning over breakfast with his family, and had not discussed the move with other Cabinet ministers.”I’m concerned that renewed internal criticism of Fianna Fail is deflecting attention from this important debate,” he said of the March 11 election, which Fianna Fail is universally forecast to lose.

Cowen, last week had rejected the notion that he could quit as Fianna Fail chief while remaining prime minister — conceded that his move was unprecedented since Ireland gained independence from Britain in 1922. “This isn’t the ideal situation, but we will manage the situation,” he stated.

Cowen stated by stepping down as Fianna Fail leader, he could focus purely on the immediate task of passing two pieces of deficit-fighting legislation linked to Ireland’s November negotiation of an emergency €67.5 billion ($91 billion) credit line from the European Union and International Monetary Fund. He stated Fianna Fail’s next leader would “prepare and move forward the organization for the (election) campaign itself.”

Fianna Fail, which is pronounced “FEEN-uh Fall” and means “soldiers of destiny” in Gaelic has won the most seats in parliament in every national election since 1932. It has formed governments following the past six elections dating back to 1987.But all opinion polls over the past year suggest that Fianna Fail faces a thrashing of historic proportions this time.

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