Fitz Gerald likely to lead

Press, 27 November 1982, Page 9

Fitz Gerald likely to lead

NZPA-Reuter Dublin Ireland’s third General Election in 18 months looks like producing a new coalition Government with a working majority to tackle the ailing economy. With most of the votes counted, Charles Haughey’s Fianna Fail party was short of an over-all majority. Most of the betting was on a coalition between Dr Garret Fitz Gerald’s Fine Gael, and the small Labour Party. Computer predictions gave Fine Gael and Labour 85 seats, Fianna Fail 76, and fringe parties and Independents five in the 166-seat Parliament. The balance of power in the last two Parliaments was held by Independents and fringe parties, one of which toppled Mr Haughey’s Government earlier this month on an Opposition no-confid-ence motion. Mr Haughey said that the new coalition would be unstable and short-lived, because of ideological differences betweeni the two parties.

But Dr Fitz Gerald, a liberal intellectual, recalled that the two parties had formed four coalitions in the past, the most recent only last year, and had always managed to resolve their differences. Labour, under its new leader, Dick Spring, a former rugby international, has refused to commit itself to a coalition with anyone.

While some sections of the party are known to oppose the idea of a coalition, believing its previous association with the conservative Fine Gael lost its support, most commentators feel that the two will get together again. There has been speculation that labour might choose a looser form of association, supporting Fi n e Gael as a

minority Government. But Dr Fitz Gerald said last night he preferred a full coalition. Labour will decide what to do at a special delegates’ conference in two weeks. The poor showing of Mr Haughey’s partly, and his failure to win an over-all majority for the third time since taking over the leadership in 1979, has inevitably raised a question mark over his future. But yesterday he said that he had no intention of standing down. He has kept his seat in the latest poll, becoming the first member of Parliament, to be declared elected. The late afternoon result in his Dublin North-Central seat gave Mr Haughey 14,516 votes, down from the 16,143 he collected in the last election in February. Also re-elected was a Fine Gael member, George Bemingham, whose vote went up from 7727 last time to 8816. The nationalist Bernadette Devlin McAliskey, fpiled to win a seat with a low poll of 1023,