Ireland’s general election delivered an early surprise on Friday as Sinn Féin, the pro-reunification party, emerged with a narrow lead in an exit poll.
But the country’s main opposition party, which had rattled business leaders in the campaign with promises of policy changes, tax cuts and spending pledges, looked set to struggle to form a government, compared with the combined forces of outgoing partners Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, who were only slightly behind.
Sinn Féin won 21.1 per cent of first preference votes under Ireland’s proportional representation system, according to the exit poll conducted by Ipsos B&A; the conservative Fine Gael was on 21 per cent and centrist party Fianna Fáil had 19.5 per cent in the same survey.
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