Voting began on Friday morning in Ireland's general election amid a tight race between the incumbent coalition parties and the opposition party Sinn Fein.
The polls opened at 7 a.m. (0800 CET) and are scheduled to close at 10 p.m.
The ballot will see a total of 174 seats of the lower chamber of parliament — the Dail — being filled, which is more than ever before.
Over 3 million voters are registered to cast their ballot in an election that has been focused on the country's cost-of-living and housing crises, the response to an uptick in immigration, and economic management for potential future trade shocks.
Which parties are contesting?
Opinion polls put the country's three big parties — center-right Fine Gael and Fianna Fail, and the leftist-nationalist Sinn Fein — each at around 20%.
Fine Gael and Fianna Fail — two parties that came up from opposing sides of the Irish civil war in the 1920s — set aside a nearly century-old rivalry and agreed to share power after the general election in 2020 saw an inconclusive result.
Read here the full article published by DW News on 29 November 2024.
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