Ahern secures a third term as Irish premier

12 April 2012

Bertie Ahern has won a third term in government in Ireland.

The prime minister's Fianna Fail party confounded its critics with a sensational poll performance.

Chasing 83 seats for an overall majority, foreign minister Dermot Ahern (no relation) said: "We potentially will be around the 80-seat mark. That might mean we won't have to look at coalition options."

The PM emerged victorious despite a tough campaign in which he was made to issue a public statement about his personal finances.

Deputy prime minister Michael McDowell quit politics after losing his seat, as his Progressive

Democrats party lost a number of high-profile candidates.

The Progressive Democrats were the coalition partners of Mr Ahern's centrist party, which won around 42 per cent of the vote.

Sinn Fein had a poor night, losing a seat in Dublin and failing to land two target marginals.

"We were clearly squeezed in the surge by Fianna Fail," said party president Gerry Adams.

Fine Gael regained a host of seats lost in the 2002 general election but its potential coalition partner Labour had a miserable day.

The official counting is expected to take several days.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in