DUBLIN: Ireland votes on Friday in a hotly-fought election, in which austerity-weary voters are expected to put the ruling Fine Gael party in front but with a diminished showing that could see it struggle to form a government.

Analysts say the party of Prime Minister Enda Kenny may be able to cobble together a coalition with smaller parties and independents. If not, Kenny could be forced to call a second election or consider a pact with Fianna Fail: Fine Gael’s traditional rival.

“Everybody knows Fine Gael will be the largest party but they won’t be big enough to govern on their own,” said politics lecturer Maura Adshead of the University of Limerick.

Though the country of 4.6 million inhabitants has become the champion of growth in Europe with seven per cent growth in the first nine months of 2015, voters are disillusioned after years of belt tightening brought on by a crisis that discredited the elites.

“It’s clearly an anti-austerity election ... one of the most unpredictable of the last decades,” said Jon Tonge, professor of politics at the University of Liverpool. “They want a better future without the hardships of austerity measures.”

Kenny and his outgoing coalition partners Labour have campaigned for re-election on a vow to “keep the recovery going” and finish the work begun by the party since the last general election in 2011.

“The recovery is very fragile and cannot and should not be taken for granted ... The last thing that this country needs now is political instability,” Kenny told reporters this week.

“I accept that many people are not feeling the recovery. That’s why we need a second term to complete the job that people gave us, to fix our public finances and get people back to work.”

‘People are dissatisfied’

Polls indicate that Fine Gael will come first, followed by the main opposition Fianna Fail and the left-wing Sinn Fein.

The Labour party, which has been in coalition with Fine Gael for the past five years, looked set to be punished by its centre-left voter base for helping introduce austerity.

Disillusioned voters look set to switch their support to independent politicians, small parties and anti-austerity candidates: a fractured group that could make forming a government more difficult.

“The increase in independents is an indication that people are dissatisfied with the traditional mainstream parties,” Adshead said.

Irish resentment crystallised around new charges on water brought in at the start of 2015 despite large demonstrations. “It was a tax too far,” said Richard Colwell, head of Red C polling.

Beneficiaries of the anger have been the new Anti Austerity Alliance/People Before Profit group and republican party Sinn Fein — once the political voice of the IRA in Northern Ireland, which has grown its support in the south in recent years by championing opposition to spending cuts.

The country has been led alternately by Fianna Fail and Fine Gael since 1932, bitter rivals whose divisions go back to a 1920s civil war.

The two differ little in political fundamentals, but both their grass-roots support and party old guard could find an alliance unthinkable.

But Noel Whelan, a former Fianna Fail councillor, said “a coalition between Fianna Fail and Fine Gael is the most likely outcome” for lack of other credible alternatives.

Both would be reluctant to consider a pact with Sinn Fein, still haunted by its association with Northern Ireland’s violent history.

Published in Dawn, February 25th, 2016