SECOND FLASH UPDATE:  I just read another report that Enda Kenny, who would be the head of a Fine Gael coalition government is going to try to peel off the Progressive Democrats who were almost wiped out in coalition with the Fianna Fail coalition goverment.  Stay tuned.  (I am sure you are all holding your breath--chortle.)

UPDATE: Bertie Ahern pulled it off. His Fianna Fail party (the party founded by DeValera) only lost four seats in the May 24, 2007, Irish General Election for the new Dail and he is poised to be Taoiseach in the new 30th Dail. The FF was predicted to lose 20 seats, but basically held its own. Ahern definitely benefited from the new outbreak of peace in the north of Ireland with the formation of the new government there. The chief opposition party, Fine Gael (the party basically descended from Michael Collins) recovered the seats that it lost in its 2002 election meltdown increasing by twenty seats over its 2002 total. There is a cloud on the horizon because each party is a minority. The total number of seats in the Dail is 166. So far the 2007 totals are: Fianna Fail 77 Fine Gael 51 Labour 20 Greens 6 Sinn Féin 4 Progressive Dem. 2 No Party 6 It takes 83 seats to form a majority government. One member of the Dail is the Ceann Comharle, (Speaker) and rarely votes. The Fianna Fail--Progressive Democrats had a majority in the last Dail, but FF lost four seats and the PD's were almost wiped out, losing six of their eight seats. A new FF-PD coalition government would only have 79 seats, four short of a majority. Ahern is evidently thinking adding in as many of the five no party or Independents as he can. (The sixth no party member is the incumbent Ceann Comhairle .) He needs four of the five to gain the magic 83. The other alternative is the Greens. Meantime the opposition is trying to hammer together an alternative government. Fine Gael, Labour and the Greens number 77 seats total. This combination is very possible as the Greens publically advocated transferring their votes to Labour and Fine Gael down the ballot. (Ireland uses basically the Hare System of proportional representation with the single transferable vote, gentle reader of the RIA. Check out some of Genghis' postings on electoral systems to get a better explanation.) This possible government will be harder to form because even if all five independents are added, the government has 82 seats. It could be defeated by Fianna Fail, Progressive Democrats and Sinn Féin with 83 seats! Then Gerry Adams and Sinn Féin become the kingmakers, and neither possible government wants this. Adams could bring down the Fine Gael coalition, but could not affect the Fianna Fail coalition. Genghis predicts that the Gerry Adams factor will lead to another Fianna Fail coalition government in Ireland. ( This is more than you wanted to know, I am sure!) ORIGINAL COMMENT: Ireland has a party system still warped from the Civil War of the 1920's. The most conservative party and the socialist party form one bloc, having been pro-treaty, and the Fianna Fail, descended from the ant-treaty DeValera faction is the other grouping. A chunk of the FF broke off a few years ago and formed the Progressive Democrats. Bernie Ahern is the Prime Minister of Ireland in a FF-PD coalition. Because of Ireland's single transferable vote proportional representation system, Ireland usually has coalition governments. Ahern has benefited from rising prosperity and a gradual winding down of the strife in the North.

A total shoneen embarrassment and a gutless windy sneaky sleveen git...and fulltime piss artist.

Smug little so and so. Glad to see Fianna Fail got a good pounding in the local elections. I hate the way he talks too, he sounds like a asthmatic Dublin schoolboy with a stutter. Too eager to bow and scrape to other world leaders. He is wayyyyy too pro-EU and he'd rather spend Irelands money on football stadiums, private jets and obscene security measures for Bush than little things like health, education, the poor, roads and rail.

What leadership skills does he portray - throw them to the sharks and see how they survive ??

Quite possibly the stupidest individual to hold office in the Western world. So long as Ireland continues to uphold any aspects of feudal Catholic nonsense as its state law, Eire can never achieve what it should have achieved centuries ago.

A-dolt-erer.

Never seems to make an important foreign policy statement until he hears what Blair or Bush or Chirac or whoever's ass he's got his head up that particular week, has to say. Doesent like to offend his larger neighbours i.e. Most Irish people were against the iraq war but he refused to speak out against it, or the illegal use by the US military of shannon. On the domestic front, his Parties inability to run the country is disgraceful, the 'promises' made before the election last year and then flatly ignored is just disgraceful. 'We the politicians have yet again mis-managed and mis-spent your money so you the people will now have to tighten your belts' Thanks Bertie. But as for what ammalone said -Shameless Adulteror. This seems to be a typical opinion from the old catholic Ireland. The fact that he has a girlfriend is irrelevant. Focus on his ability to govern not his sex life.

Shameless Adulterer.

Proactive at getting the Irish to go along with the EU, which will eventually be what ends the conflict. Also, did a good job leading the incredibly strong Celtic Tiger economy.

what can he possibly have done to get the conflict ended