By IRNA,
London : Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny was expected to start immediate talks Monday over the prospect of forming a coalition government after his party won last week’s elections.
The centre-right party is on course to win about 75 seats in the 166-seat Irish parliament, short of an overall majority new, and is set to open talks with Labor, which finished second in Friday’s poll.
A Fine Gael spokesman confirmed that Kenny, as the virtual prime minister-elect, had telephoned Labor leader Eamon Gilmore with regard to beginning the negotiation process.
Fianna Fail, the country’s traditional ruling centre-right party, suffered its biggest ever defeat in the elections, and it is expected that Fine Gael will enter into a coalition with Labor as it did in 1992.
With results from 12 constituencies still outstanding on Monday morning, Fine Gael has so far secured 70 seats, up from 51 at the last election in 2007, while Labor has increased its seat from 20 to 36, its highest ever tally.
Other firsts in the election include Fianna Fail slumping to just 18 seats, its lowest ever number, while Sinn Fein, the only all-Ireland party, is so far up to 13 seats from 5 five years ago.
The change in government follows the collapse of Ireland’s economy and banking system at the end of last year and Kenny faces a series of key European meetings within days of taking office to try to extract better EU-IMF bailout terms for their loans.