Angry voters yesterday sought to punish the Irish government by inflicting a historic defeat on the Fianna Fail in a by-election that signals the end of Brian Cowen's career.
Local polling shows that Fianna Fail (FF), which has been in power for 53 years of its 84-year history, will be pushed into an unprecedented fourth place in the Donegal south west constituency, a traditional stronghold.
Sinn Fein, usually seen a Northern Irish outsider, is expected to win a stunning victory, beating FF by three to one, according to polls.
The defeat will further destabilise a fragile government making its parliamentary majority dependent of the support of two fractious independent MPs, to give Mr Cowen a shaky 81 seats over 79 for the opposition.
In two weeks, the government must push through deeply unpopular austerity budget, increasing taxes and cutting spending by £5 billion next year or else the EU will refuse to payout a £72 billion bailout.
A budget defeat would trigger a financial meltdown for Ireland which was forced to seek EU and IMF aid after the spiralling cost of bailing out the country's banks threatened to bankrupt the state and tear down the euro zone.
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See Also:
Merkel confident plummeting euro can ride out storm
Merkel's Reputation on the Decline in Europe
Updates
2:07 pm EST, November 26th, 2010 — Euro-Zone Debt Crisis Escalates
2:10 pm EST, November 26th, 2010 — Analysis: Thinking the unthinkable — a euro zone breakup
"(Reuters) – Contagion spreads from Ireland to Portugal and then to Spain, forcing European leaders to exhaust the $1 trillion bailout fund they set up only half a year ago to defend their ambitious single currency project."
2:17 pm EST, November 26th, 2010 — Plugging the hole
2:24 pm EST, November 26th, 2010 — Voters Hammer Irish Government
I apologize for keeping my eye on this situation. I know it’s boring for most visitors but I believe it important.
I say this because China is heavily invested in the EU and if it breaks up (which I believe it will in time) there are going to be very serious political and financial ramifications for every taxpayer and investor world wide in the days and months ahead.
What they may be I don’t know. I can’t even begin to speculate at this point but it is for certain that an ill wind blows no good. And right now it appears that a hurricane has been spawned in “of all places” — Ireland.
Maybe the EU should have listened to this tiny country the first time they said “No” to all the ongoing stupidity. Now they reap the whirlwind.
Such is democracy and you fool with it at your peril.
Actually the whole EUtopian experiment was scarier BEFORE it blew up. Now that “it” has hit the fan we will start to see real failure and failure is as important to democratic/capitalism as sin is to religion.
Now the healing process can start and Europe can start to “right” itself from its postmodern, cultural relativism that will not work. Sovereignty will return to its rightful place and the age old process of countries succeeding and failing will continue until the next utopian craze comes along and hypnotizes those vulnerable to elitism.
Agreed.