Rival Irish parties elect new prime minister
LONDON — Centrist politician Micheal Martin became Ireland’s new prime minister on Saturday, fusing two longtime rival parties into a coalition four months after an election that upended the status quo.
The deal will see Martin’s Fianna Fail govern with Fine Gael — the party of outgoing leader Leo Varadkar — and with the smaller Green Party.
Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, bitter opponents whose roots lie in opposing sides of the civil war that followed Ireland’s independence from the United Kingdom, have never before formed a government together.
“I believe civil-war politics ended a long time ago in our country, but today civil-war politics ends in our parliament,” said Varadkar, who became Ireland’s youngest and first gay prime minister three years ago.
“Two great parties coming together with another great party, the Green Party, to offer what this country needs — a stable government for the betterment of our country and for the betterment of our world.”
The Dail, the lower house of Ireland’s parliament, elected Martin by a vote of 93-63, with three abstentions. Martin later met with Irish President Michael D. Higgins to receive his seal of office.
Under the plan approved by the parties’ memberships, Martin became taoiseach, or prime minister. He will serve until the end of 2022, then hand the job back to Varadkar.
The left-wing nationalist party Sinn Fein was shut out of the new government even though an electoral breakthrough saw it win the largest share of the votes in February’s election.
Despite coming out ahead, Sinn Fein could not assemble enough support to govern.
The two centrist parties have long shunned Sinn Fein because of its historic links to the Irish Republican Army and decades of violence in Northern Ireland.