Irish Leader’s Party Set to Win

DUBLIN, Ireland —  Prime Minister Bertie Ahern’s Fianna Fail party was on track today for a sweeping victory--but just short of the predicted overall majority--in a parliamentary election that also saw big gains for Sinn Fein.

Center-right Fianna Fail had won 71 of the 166 seats in the lower house of Parliament by early today, with 23 results yet to be declared. Some counting centers closed until later in the day.

Though jubilant at his party’s blistering performance, Ahern dampened expectations that he would gain the 83 seats required for an outright parliamentary majority. Lawmakers will convene June 6 to reelect Ahern.

Ahern, who can rely on a few sympathetic independents to boost his numbers, said he would be happy to renew his outgoing coalition with the smaller Progressive Democrats, who had so far secured four seats.

The election, held Friday, has changed Ireland’s political landscape, as voters delivered a devastating blow to the main opposition party, Fine Gael, and a significant breakthrough to Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army.

Fine Gael leader Michael Noonan said he would resign immediately.

Sinn Fein, long shunned by the Dublin political establishment and with just one member in the outgoing Parliament, has so far won five seats, including one in the southwestern constituency of North Kerry, won by convicted IRA gunrunner Martin Ferris.

The party, which is dedicated to ending British rule in Northern Ireland, has reinvented itself as a radical social crusader in the Irish republic, focusing on issues such as drugs, crime and poverty, and targeting the younger vote.

Led by party President Gerry Adams, Sinn Fein activists roared with joy as initial results announced in Dublin’s urban constituencies indicated that their candidates fared strongly.

In North Kerry, Sinn Fein activists hefted Ferris onto their shoulders.

Ferris spent 10 years in a top-security Irish prison after being caught in 1984 running guns to the IRA in a boat from Boston.

After his release, Ferris was a key Sinn Fein negotiator in the run-up to Northern Ireland’s 1998 peace agreement, but security sources and political opponents allege that he remains a senior figure in the IRA.

Ferris rejects the charge, saying he is dedicated to politics.

Residents of North Kerry described the 50-year-old father of six as a “hard man,” tough on drugs and concerned about social issues.