? Enda Kenny is hot favourite to be elected taoiseach
? New government's priority will be to lobby EU finance summit
Irish people are voting on Friday in what is arguably the most important general election in the republic's history.
The electorate of more than 2 million will be sending representatives of a new government back to Brussels early next month to renegotiate the terms of the international bailout package that gave Ireland more than ?80bn (�68bn).
Enda Kenny, leader of the main opposition party, Fine Gael, is almost certain to be elected taoiseach and is already planning to travel next week to Brussels to meet his counterparts in the European People's party bloc.
The meeting will pave the way for an EU finance summit later in March during which a number of debt-stricken countries, including Ireland, will attempt to persuade fellow Europeans to lower the interest payments on the loans.
Up until the final day of campaigning, Kenny and his party have been resisting all calls to reveal who they will share power with after the election. Kenny has also declined to give advice to Fine Gael voters as to where they should place their second, third, fourth and other preferences. Ireland elects its 166 members of the Irish parliament on the single transferable vote system in 43 multi-member constituencies.
Asked about the prospect of becoming prime minister, Kenny said: "I have been round this course before. This is a very anxious period for everyone standing in the election but the Irish people are suffering at the minute and they are looking for a way out."
Despite a surge in support, Fine Gael is unlikely to reach the magic figure of 83 seats that would allow the party to govern with an overall majority. Over recent days, relationships have been improving between Fine Gael and the Irish Labour party, Kenny's most likely coalition partners.
Labour has complained of last-minute dirty tricks directed at the party by the Catholic right. Anti-abortion pressure groups have covered lamp-posts along O'Connell Street, Dublin's major thoroughfare, with stickers claiming: "A vote for Labour is a vote for abortion." Labour is the only one of the major Dail parties to take a pro-choice stance on abortion, which is still illegal in Ireland.
Party leader Eamon Gilmore, the man tipped to serve as deputy prime minister in what is expected to be the next coalition government, said that his home in his Dun Laoghaire constituency had been picketed by busloads of anti-abortion protesters earlier in the campaign. He said the protest had upset his wife and five-year-old son.
"We are all human, we do feel things. I have a family who are entitled to privacy," said Gilmore.
Despite several unresolved disagreements between Fine Gael and Labour ? not least over the issue of abortion ? most commentators and bookmakers seem to think the two parties are most likely to form the next coalition with a 30-plus majority in the Dail.
According to a mobile advertising hoarding owned by Ladbrokes in O'Connell Street, the chances of a Fine Gael-Labour government being formed after the weekend were judged to be 7-2 on.
RTE, the state broadcaster, will be conducting exit polls at various voting centres across the republic on election day. However, under Irish broadcasting laws they cannot publish their results until 7am on Saturday, just a few hours before the real count begins. In the last general election, in 2007, RTE's exit poll was found to be 99% accurate.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/24/irish-election-fine-gael-labour
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