Ireland votes in key election

Ireland began voting in a general election yesterday, with Prime Minister Leo Varadkar hoping to secure a new term on the back of Brexit -- though voters are more likely to judge him more on his domestic record.

Polls opened across the country at 0700 GMT, although a small number of islands off the west coast voted on Friday to allow for rough seas potentially disrupting the transport of ballots by boat.

Varadkar’s Fine Gael party has been in power since 2011 but polling suggests they are trailing centre-right rivals Fianna Fail and left-wingers Sinn Fein.

In Monday’s final opinion poll, Sinn Fein -- the former political wing of the now-defunct Irish Republican Army paramilitary group -- were out in front on 25 percent, with Fianna Fail on 23 percent and Fine Gael on 20 percent.

In Dublin a slow trickle of morning voters made their way to polling stations for the weekend vote, which breaks with Ireland’s tradition of elections being held on Friday, in a bid to decrease disruption and improve turnout.

Voters told AFP they were looking to break the historic duopoly of centre-right parties Fine Gael and Fianna Fail.

Some 3.3 million people are eligible to vote to elect 159 members of the Dail, the lower chamber of parliament in Dublin.

Varadkar launched his campaign after successfully helping to broker a deal cushioning Britain’s EU exit on January 31 by avoiding a hard border with Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom.