Ireland PM announces election for end of February

LONDON

Ireland’s prime minister, Enda Kenny, has called a general election for the end of February, seeking a fresh mandate after years of reform following a eurozone bailout.

Kenny announced Wednesday that the election will be held on Feb. 26, nearly five years after his liberal Fine Gael party formed a government coalition with the center-left Labour Party.

The fledgling coalition was immediately forced to implement an austerity deal with the IMF and the European Union to rescue Ireland’s economy, which has since begun growing again.

“You gave us a clear mandate to fix our public finances and get out people back to work. Five years on we still have many challenges, and the job is not yet finished, but working together we have made real progress,” Kenny said in a video message he released on his Twitter account.

“This election is about who will keep that recovery going based on stability and progress. It is a clear choice between continuing on the path of recovery with Fine Gael, or putting your hard earned progress at risk by handing it over to those who wrecked our country in the past, or those who would wreck it in the future,” he added.

His comments constituted a thinly veiled criticism of his opponents, the Fianna Fail party, which was had been in government for decades until a nearly simultaneous collapse of Ireland’s banking and housing sectors left the country on the brink of bankruptcy.

Fianna Fail’s leader, Micheal Martin, said he would run “an active campaign in every community in this country”.

“We’re going to hold this government to account and we’re going to promote our positive message. We want an Ireland for all,” he added

Opinion polls have pointed to Kenny, rather than Martin, winning enough votes to form the next government. A Jan. 31 survey for the Sunday Business Post put the prime minister’s Fine Gael at 29 percent, far ahead of Fianna Fail at 17.

But the same survey suggested Kenny would not have sufficient support to resurrect his coalition with Labour. He might have to turn to others including the nationalists Sinn Fein, which have found increasing support as a party of protest.

The election will take place weeks before the centenary of the Easter Rising, the 1916 rebellion aimed at ending British rule in Ireland and establishing an independent republic.