DUBLIN (AP) — Voters are deciding who should fill two empty seats in Ireland’s parliament in a test of the government’s unpopularity following years of tax hikes and spending cuts.
Analysts are forecasting opposition victories in Friday’s by-elections to fill two seats for southwest Dublin and the western rural district of Roscommon-South Leitrim. Results are expected Saturday.
Both districts feature pockets of poverty and abandoned construction projects, a legacy of the 2008 collapse of Ireland’s credit-fueled Celtic Tiger boom. Left-wing opposition candidates critical of the austerity-enforcing government of Prime Minister Enda Kenny are the favorites to win both contests.
The two seats became vacant in May when their holders — one from Kenny’s Fine Gael party — won seats in the European Parliament in Brussels.
Kenny’s two-party government faces re-election by March 2016.
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