Sinn Fein Gains in Irish Election Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit source - PolOTuama@aol.com Reuters - May 18, 2002 Sinn Fein Gains in Irish Election By Michael Roddy DUBLIN, Ireland (Reuters) - Prime Minister Bertie Ahern and his Fianna Fail party headed for resounding victory on Saturday in Irish elections as hard-line republicans Sinn Fein who want a united Ireland also made inroads. Buoyed by the biggest economic boom in Ireland's history, Ahern could be returned with the first overall majority in a quarter century in the 166-seat Dail, or lower chamber of parliament. In several key constituencies around the country, Fianna Fail or its conservative coalition ally the Progressive Democrats were poised to gain seats, mostly at the expense of the main opposition centrist Fine Gael, partial tallies of paper ballots from Friday's vote showed. In a race in Dublin Southeast, Attorney General Michael McDowell, a Progressive Democrat, looked set to take a seat from Fine Gael, a trend repeated around the country. Fine Gael is "in meltdown territory," political analyst Noel Whelan said on state-run RTE television. At the same time, Sinn Fein, political wing of the guerrilla Irish Republican Army (IRA) which fought a bloody 30-year campaign against British rule of Northern Ireland, was making strong gains, mainly in Dublin and in western County Kerry. Sinn Fein, aspiring to become an "all Ireland" party with more power in the republic to the south as well as in the north, won seven percent support in an exit poll, a sharp increase from its 2.5 percent in the 1997 vote. Its candidate Martin Ferris, a convicted IRA gunrunner standing in North Kerry, was the top vote-getter in preliminary counts, beating even former foreign minister and veteran Labour Party MP Dick Spring. "GOOD DAY FOR PEACE PROCESS" "This is good news for us," Martin McGuinness, deputy leader of Sinn Fein, said. "I think it suffices to say at this stage that we are well on the way to achieving our objective. Our vote is up in every constituency, we're absolutely over the moon and I think that it's a good day for the peace process," he said. Sinn Fein maintains that by becoming an all-Ireland political force, it can help to bolster the 1998 Good Friday agreement which brought tentative peace and power sharing between Protestants and Roman Catholics in the north. Results from the constituencies where voting from Friday's rain-soaked election was conducted electronically gave Fianna Fail six out of 12 seats, holding five and gaining a second seat in the largely middle-class area of Dublin North. The vote toppled the former deputy leader of Fine Gael, a worrying sign for a party which looks set for electoral debacle. "Fine Gael is facing a challenge, a very major challenge," John Bruton, the party's former leader, who was Ahern's predecessor as prime minister, said after he was re-elected in a close contest. RTE said reports from around the country -- where some 2.95 million people were eligible to vote -- suggested turnout had been more than 50 percent in many areas, and up to 70 percent in some rural districts in the northwest. Counting of paper ballots from the remaining 39 constituencies began at 9:00 a.m. (0800 GMT), and was continuing well into the afternoon. An exit poll of more than 3,000 voters found that Fianna Fail was the first choice of 43 percent, a gain of four percent on the party's actual vote in the 1997 election. Fine Gael was down six percentage points to 22 percent, the poll by Lansdowne Market Research survey found. Pollster Roger Jupp said the results did not necessarily point to a landslide for Fianna Fail, noting that the outcome would depend on "the final count in each of the constituencies to see who gets there." FEEL-GOOD FACTOR Opposition parties tried to attack Ahern on the poor state of public services and infrastructure, but the popular Dubliner benefited from the feel-good factor created by the economic boom of recent years. The center-left Labour party was tipped to come third with 12 percent of the vote, and Sinn Fein fourth, winning three to five seats. A political power in British-ruled Northern Ireland but traditionally shunned in the south, Sinn Fein has backed 37 candidates in 34 constituencies, more than ever before. With massive financial support from Irish Americans and a radical left-wing program, Sinn Fein courted disaffected voters left behind by the "Celtic Tiger" economy and disillusioned with mainstream politics. Sinn Fein gains in the Irish Republic would be likely to unsettle the pro-British Protestant majority in Northern Ireland. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytact-05.18.02-22:09:14-32190