LONDON (AP) — Irish President Michael Higgins dissolved parliament on Friday, paving the way for a Nov. 29 election to decide who will take control.
Prime Minister Simon Harris had been required to hold a general election by March, but announced the date on Wednesday.
A historic coalition led by Ms Harris' centre-right Fine Gael party and her centre-left rival Fianna Fail has been in power since the 2020 election campaign ended in a virtual dead heat.
“Although we have not agreed on every issue, we have always worked hard together in the interests of the Irish people,” Mr Harris said. “The time has come to ask the Irish people for a new mission.”
Born on opposing sides of the Irish Civil War in the 1920s, Fine Gael and Fianna Fail share broad centrist views and have alternately held power over Ireland for decades. The two sides put aside their differences and worked together in 2020, bringing the Greens with them as junior partners.
Fianna Fail leader Michael Martin served as prime minister for the first half of his term and was replaced by Fine Gael's Leo Varadkar in December 2022.
Harris replaced Mr Varadkar after he resigned earlier this year.
The left-wing nationalist Sinn Féin party won the largest share of the vote in the election, but was excluded from government because it could not muster enough support to govern. Sinn Féin has been shunned by centrist parties because of its historic ties to nationalist extremism in the Irish Republican Army and decades of violence in Northern Ireland.
Sinn Féin said it was fielding more candidates to lead the government.
“After a century of Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, now is the time to make that change to give Sinn Féin an opportunity to take the lead and deliver,” party leader Mary Lou McDonald said. said. “In Sinn Féin, we will have a government that will move heaven and earth to make housing affordable, put home ownership back within the reach of working people and restore hope for a generation.”
Ireland, with a population of 5.2 million, has faced many of the same challenges as other countries since the last election, including the coronavirus pandemic, economic turmoil caused by the war in Ukraine, and a surge in immigration from abroad.
Mr Martin said the next five years would be difficult for the Irish economy, citing the impact of global conflicts and possible changes in US trade policy.
Mr Martin said: “The biggest threat to the Irish economy is external. We need experience and a leadership that has already demonstrated the ability to weather significant events and shocks to get us through the next difficult five years. It's necessary.''
Harris said the coalition has protected people during the coronavirus crisis, supported Ukraine during the war and weathered the cost of living crisis.
Housing, immigration and child care are some of the key issues for voters, he said.
He said he was pleased the government had secured funding to weather future trade shocks.
“We were being ridiculed for that,” Harris said. “This is exactly why we have a buffer there so that even if there is a transatlantic shock or some other economic shock, my children will never experience austerity like our generation did. There's no need to.
Ireland faced bankruptcy in 2010 over the cost of bailing out failed banks. It adopted an austerity program as one of the conditions for an international bailout, but faced a major backlash after exiting the bailout in 2013.
