Ireland votes in a close-run election where incumbents hope to cling on to power

DUBLIN (AP) — Ireland is voting Friday in a parliamentary election that will decide the next government — and will show whether Ireland bucks the global trend of incumbents being ousted by disgruntled voters after years of pandemic, international instability and a cost-of-living pressures.

Polls opened at 7 a.m.. (0700GMT), and Ireland’s 3.8 million voters are selecting 174 lawmakers to sit in the Dail, the lower house of parliament.

Here’s a look at the parties, the issues and the likely outcome.

The outgoing government was led by the two parties who have dominated Irish politics for the past century: Fine Gael and Fianna Fail. They have similar center-right policies but are longtime rivals with origins on opposing sides of Ireland’s 1920s civil war.

After the 2020 election ended in a virtual dead heat they formed a coalition, agreeing to share Cabinet posts and take turns as taoiseach, or prime minister. Fianna Fail leader Micheál Martin served as premier for the first half of the term and was replaced by Fine Gael’s Leo Varadkar in December 2022. Varadkar unexpectedly stepped down in March, passing the job to current Taoiseach Simon Harris.

Opposition party Sinn Fein achieved a stunning breakthrough in the 2020 election, topping the popular vote, but was shut out of government because Fianna Fail and Fine Gael refused to work with it, citing its leftist policies and historic ties with militant group the Irish Republican Army during three decades of violence in Northern Ireland.

Under Ireland’s system of proportional representation, each of the 43 constituencies elects multiple lawmakers, with voters ranking their preferences. That makes it relatively easy for smaller parties and independent candidates with a strong local following to gain seats.

This election includes a large crop of independent candidates, ranging from local campaigners to far-right activists and reputed crime boss Gerry “the Monk” Hutch.

As in many other countries, the cost of living — especially housing — has dominated the campaign. Ireland has an acute housing shortage, the legacy of failing to build enough new homes during the country’s “Celtic Tiger” boom years and the economic slump that followed the 2008 global financial crisis.

“There was not building during the crisis, and when the crisis receded, offices and hotels were built first,” said John-Mark McCafferty, chief executive of housing and homelessness charity Threshold.

The result is soaring house prices, rising rents and growing homelessness.

After a decade of economic growth, McCafferty said “Ireland has resources” — not least 13 billion euros ($13.6 billion) in back taxes the European Union has ordered Apple to pay it — “but it is trying to address big historic infrastructural deficits.”

Tangled up with the housing issue is immigration, a fairly recent challenge to a country long defined by emigration. Recent arrivals include more than 100,000 Ukrainians displaced by war and thousands of people fleeing poverty and conflict in the Middle East and Africa.

This country of 5.4 million has struggled to house all the asylum-seekers, leading to tent camps and makeshift accommodation centers that have attracted tension and protests. A stabbing attack on children outside a Dublin school a year ago, in which an Algerian man has been charged, sparked the worst rioting Ireland had seen in decades.

Unlike many European countries, Ireland does not have a significant far-right party, but far-right voices on social media seek to drum up hostility to migrants, and anti-immigrant independent candidates are hoping for election in several districts. The issue appears to be hitting support for Sinn Fein, as working-class supporters bristled at its pro-immigration policies.

Opinion polls suggest voters’ support is split into five roughly even chunks — for Fine Gael, Fianna Fail, Sinn Fein, several smaller parties and an assortment of independents.

Fine Gael has run a gaffe-prone campaign, Fianna Fail has remained steady in the polls and Sinn Fein says it has momentum, but is unlikely to win power unless the other parties drop their opposition to working with it.

Analysts say the most likely outcome is another Fine Gael-Fianna Fail coalition, possibly with a smaller party or a clutch of independents as kingmakers.

“It’s just a question of which minor group is going to be the group that supports the government this time,” said Eoin O’Malley, a political scientist at Dublin City University. “Coalition-forming is about putting a hue on what is essentially the same middle-of-the-road government every time.”

Polls close Friday at 10 p.m. (2200GMT), when an exit poll will give the first hints about the result. Counting ballots begins on Saturday morning. Full results could take several days, and forming a government days or weeks after that.

Harris, who cast his vote in Delgany, south of Dublin, said Irish voters and politicians have “got a long few days ahead of us.”

“Isn’t it the beauty and the complexity of our system that when the clock strikes 10 o’clock tonight, there’ll be an exit poll but that won’t even tell us the outcome of the election," he said.

Lawless reported from London

Voters cast their ballots at Delgany National School, County Wicklow, as voters go to the polls for the 2024 General Election in Ireland, Friday Nov. 29, 2024. (Niall Carson/PA via AP)

Irish Prime Minister and Fine Gael leader Simon Harris, center, accompanied by his wife Caoimhe and children Cillian and Saoirse, casts his vote at Delgany National School, County Wicklow, as voters go to the polls for the 2024 General Election in Ireland, Friday Nov. 29, 2024. (Niall Carson/PA via AP)

Irish election posters hang from lamp posts in Dublin City centre, Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2024, ahead of Ireland's election on Friday. (AP Photo/Peter Morrison)

Irish election posters hang from lampposts in Dublin City centre, Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2024, ahead of Ireland's election on Friday. (AP Photo/Peter Morrison)

Irish Prime Minister and Fine Gael leader Simon Harris, center, speaks on the phone during a walkabout on the last day of campaigning, on the eve of the General Election, in Dublin, Thursday, Nov. 28, 2024. (Brian Lawless/PA via AP)

Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald, center, speaks to the media outside Government Buildings, on the last day of campaigning on the eve of the General Election, in Dublin, Thursday, Nov. 28, 2024. (Brian Lawless/PA via AP)

Green leader Roderic O'Gorman, center, speaks to the media during a press conference at the Irish Architectural Archive, on the last day of campaigning on the eve of the General Election, in Dublin, Thursday, Nov. 28, 2024. (Brian Lawless/PA via AP)

Irish Prime Minister and Fine Gael leader Simon Harris leaves Marconi House after speaking on Newstalk's Pat Kenny show, on the last day of campaigning on the eve of the General Election, in Dublin, Thursday, Nov. 28, 2024. (Brian Lawless/PA via AP)

Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald, center, walks with candidates Eoin O Broin, left, Matt Carthy, right, and supporters arrive at Government Buildings, on the last day of campaigning on the eve of the General Election, in Dublin, Thursday, Nov. 28, 2024. (Brian Lawless/PA via AP)

Tanaiste and Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin, right, meets Barney Hynes and his grandson Wyatt McLoughlin in Arklow, Ireland, on the last day of campaigning on the eve of the General Election, Thursday Nov. 28, 2024. (Brian Lawless/PA via AP)

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov arrived in North Korea on Friday for talks with North Korean military and political leaders as the countries deepen their cooperation over Russia’s war in Ukraine.

In announcing the visit, Russia's Defense Ministry didn’t say whom Belousov would meet or the purpose of the talks. North Korean state media didn’t immediately confirm the visit.

Belousov, a former economist, replaced Sergei Shoigu as defense minister in May after Russian President Vladimir Putin started a fifth term in power.

Photos released by the Defense Ministry showed Belousov walking alongside North Korean Defense Minister No Kwang Chol on a red carpet at a Pyongyang airport. North Korean military officials were seen clapping under a banner that read, “Complete support and solidarity with the fighting Russian army and people.”

Belousov noted after his arrival that military cooperation between the countries is expanding. He applauded a strategic partnership agreement signed by Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un following their June meeting in Pyongyang, which he said is aimed at reducing tensions by maintaining a “balance of power” in the region and lowering the risk of war, including with nuclear weapons.

The June meeting demonstrated the “highest level of mutual trust” between the leaders, Belousov said, and “also the mutual desire of our countries to further expand mutually beneficial cooperation in a complex international environment.”

North Korean Defense Minister No also praised the expanding cooperation between the countries’ militaries and reiterated North Korea’s support for Russia’s war in Ukraine, describing it as a “just struggle to protect the country’s sovereign rights and security interests.”

The visit comes days after South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol met with a Ukrainian delegation led by Defense Minister Rustem Umerov in the South Korean capital of Seoul and called for the two countries to formulate countermeasures in response to North Korea’s dispatch of thousands of troops to Russia to help its fight against Ukraine. Kim in recent months has prioritized relations with Russia as he tries to break out of isolation and strengthen his international footing, embracing the idea of a “new Cold War.”

The United States and its allies have said North Korea has sent more than 10,000 soldiers to Russia in recent weeks and that some of those troops were engaging in combat.

North Korea has also been accused of supplying artillery systems, missiles and other military equipment to Russia that may help Putin further extend an almost three-year war. There are also concerns in Seoul that North Korea, in exchange for its troops and arms supplies, could receive Russian technology transfers that could improve its nuclear weapons and missile programs.

Yoon’s national security adviser, Shin Wonsik, said in a TV interview last week that Seoul believes that Russia has provided air defense missile systems to North Korea in exchange for sending its troops.

Shin said Russia also appears to have given economic assistance to North Korea and various military technologies, including those needed for the North’s efforts to build a reliable space-based surveillance system, which Kim has stressed is crucial for enhancing the threat of nuclear-capable missiles targeting South Korea. Shin didn’t say whether Russia has already transferred sensitive nuclear weapons and ballistic missile technologies to North Korea.

Yoon’s office hasn’t said whether the two governments discussed the possibility of South Korea supplying weapons to Ukraine in his talks with Umerov.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, South Korea has joined U.S.-led sanctions against Moscow and provided humanitarian and financial support to Kyiv. But it has avoided directly supplying arms, citing a longstanding policy of not giving lethal weapons to countries actively engaged in conflicts.

Yoon has said his government will take phased countermeasures, linking the level of its response to the degree of Russian-North Korean cooperation.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether Belousov will meet with Kim, the North Korean leader. Last year, Kim hosted a Russian delegation led by then-Defense Minister Shoigu and gave him a personal tour of a North Korean arms exhibition, in what outside critics likened to a sales pitch.

That event came weeks before Kim traveled to Russia for talks with Putin which sped up military cooperation between the countries. During another meeting in Pyongyang in June this year, Kim and Putin signed a pact stipulating mutual military assistance if either country is attacked, in what was considered the two countries’ biggest defense deal since the end of the Cold War.

In this photo taken from a video released by Russian Defense Ministry press service, Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov, right on the red carpet, is welcomed by North Korean Defense Minister No Kwang Chol, left on the red carpet, upon his arrival at Pyongyang International Airport outside of Pyongyang, North Korea Friday, Nov. 29, 2024. (Russian Defense Press Service via AP)

In this photo taken from a video released by Russian Defense Ministry press service, Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov, left, is welcomed by North Korean Defense Minister No Kwang Chol upon his arrival at Pyongyang International Airport outside of Pyongyang, North Korea Friday, Nov. 29, 2024. (Russian Defense Press Service via AP)