An angry election day

“Final pleas by parties as nation votes in crucial election,” headlines the Irish Times, on the day Ireland’s 3.2 million voters go to the polls. In the midst of bitter recrimination over Ireland’s economic meltdown and subsequent EU/IMF bailout, Ireland’s ruling party, Fianna Fáil, could see its 73 seats in the 166 seat Dáil (Irish parliament) reduced to a rump of less than 25. Reflecting widespread disenchantment with mainstream political parties, a record 212 independents are candidates in the country’s 43 constituencies. The man most likely to become next Taoiseach, Enda Kenny of centre-right Fine Gael, urged voters “to turn their anger against the current administration into action when they vote.” Ireland, he said, was living with a “national heartbreak” as it reeled from “the national confidence trick pulled on it by the Government and those to whom it had ceded power, the developers [who triggered the real estate bubble] and banks.”