INTERNATIONAL POLICY ANALYSIS Briefing paper on the Irish elections 2011 Facing an Angry Electorate: Irish Politicians Desperately Seek to Convince BY PEADAR KIRBY February 2011 ࡯ Election 2011 looks set to mark the most important realignment of the Irish party system since the early 1930s with the dramatic collapse in the vote for the party that has dominated Irish politics over that period, Fianna Fáil. ࡯ If parties implement their election promises, it will result in the most radical reform of Irish political institutions since independence. ࡯ But the parties’ options with regard to economic, financial and taxation policy are possibly the most constrained they have ever been, after the outgoing government signed a rescue package with the EU, the ECB and the IMF in November 2010 which endorses an austerity plan up to 2015 to deal with Ireland’s economic and banking collapse. ࡯ While a coalition between the Christian democratic Fine Gael party and the social democratic Labour party looks the most likely outcome, final results just might make a minority Fine Gael government, supported by like-minded independents or even Fianna Fáil, a possibility. Polling trends and party rivalries would appear to rule out a left-wing alliance led by Labour.