Exit Polls: Irish PM Headed for Third Term

May 25, 08:07 AM

Current Headlines: Exit polls taken after Ireland's general election predict Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, of the Fianna Fail party, is likely to return for a third term.

However, the polls predict a close final distribution of seats, leaving the question of who Fianna Fail's coalition partners will be unanswered, the Financial Times reported Friday.

Exit polls conducted by national broadcaster RTE suggested 41.6 percent of the vote went to Fianna Fail, a similar percentage to the outcome of the 2002 election, which gave the party 81 seats in the country's 166-seat Parliament. The party's rival, Fine Gael, was projected by the exit poll to have gathered 26.3 percent of the vote -- 4 percentage points more than it received in 2002, the Financial Times said.

A final count of the vote will not be available until Saturday, due to the complicated single transferable voting system employed by the country.