Lawmakers in the Republic of Ireland have abandoned an effort to appoint a new prime minister amid bitter wrangling over parliamentary procedure.
The chaotic scenes in the parliament on Wednesday mean the nomination of Micheal Martin, of the Fianna Fail party, will have to wait until at least Thursday.
The speaker of the lower house, or Dail, suspended the chamber for a fourth time after the Sinn Fein party voiced anger over plans to allow independent parliamentarians, some of whom back the incoming government, to join them on the opposition benches.
Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald claimed that Fianna Fail wanted “to place their independent cronies, supporters of the government, on the opposition benches and to afford them the same speaking rights of the opposition”.
Following Ireland’s November 29 election, a coalition deal was struck last week between the country’s two largest centre-right parties and a group of independent lawmakers. Martin’s party won the most seats, but not enough to govern alone.
Fianna Fail won 48 of the 174 legislative seats and Fine Gael won 38. The two parties share broadly similar centre-right policies despite opposing each other during Ireland’s bloody civil war in the 1920s.
Under the coalition agreement, Martin is expected to become the prime minister – or taoiseach – for three years, with Fine Gael’s Simon Harris, the outgoing leader, as his deputy. The two politicians would then swap jobs for the rest of the five-year term.
The governing agreement shuts out left-of-centre party Sinn Fein, which will stay in opposition despite winning 39 seats.
Fine Gael and Fianna Fail have refused to work with them because of their historic ties with the Irish Republican Army (IRA) during decades of violence in Northern Ireland.
The new government faces huge pressure to ease rising homelessness, driven by soaring rents and property prices, and to better absorb a growing number of asylum seekers.
The cost of living – especially Ireland’s acute housing crisis – was a dominant topic in the election campaign, and immigration has become an emotive and challenging issue in a country of 5.4 million people long defined by emigration.
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