As Ireland votes, premier expected to stay in office

Voters decided Thursday whether to stick with the 10-year-old government of Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, amid rising concern over the cost of living and other issues.

The elections have been the most competitive in decades, raising the possibility of a “hung” parliament in which no party commands a majority. Analysts say that Ahern is likely to remain prime minister but that any of the smaller parties in parliament could end up with the balance of power.

For the last decade, Ahern’s partners have been the Progressive Democrats, who are liberal on social issues but champions of U.S.-style private enterprise and low taxes. That agenda has helped make Ireland, for centuries a mass exporter of immigrants, the European hub of more than 1,000 multinational companies and the world’s No. 1 exporter of software.

But the Progressive Democrats seem likely to be the biggest losers of the election, languishing at the bottom of every opinion poll.

Any coalition would have to reach 83 seats in the 166-seat Dail Eireann, the parliament, to form a majority.

Final results are unlikely until Saturday because of a complex system that allows voters to rate candidates in order of preference and requires ballots to be counted as many as a dozen times.

The campaign has revealed a nation increasingly unsettled by the side effects of its success.

Hundreds of thousands of Eastern European immigrants compete with unionized labor. Schools and hospitals have been unable to cope with the booming population. Property prices have quadrupled in a decade and the overall inflation rate is 5.1%.

One or more left-wing parties could end up cutting a coalition deal with either Ahern, 55, and his Fianna Fail party or his main rival, Enda Kenny, head of the Fine Gael party.

Fianna Fail and Fine Gael trace their roots to opposing sides in the 1922-23 civil war that followed Irish independence from Britain. Both stick to the middle ground of opinion, taking on the flavor of whichever smaller party on the left or right helps them reach a majority.

Kenny -- whose Fine Gael has finished second to Fianna Fail in every election since the 1930s -- has promised to expand hospital services and resolve chronic overcrowding, fund free medical care for children younger than 5 and hire 2,000 more police officers.