2024-03-22 16:51:18
Why this resignation?
On Wednesday March 20, Leo Varadkar shocked the Irish but also the political world by announcing, during a press conference, with real emotion in his voice, that he was resigning both from his post as Prime Minister and as leader of his party, Fine Gael (center right). Leo Varadkar was at 38 years old (2017) the youngest prime minister in Europe. In his statement read on the steps of government buildings in Dublin, he cited reasons “personal and political”. “Part of leadership is knowing when the time is right to pass the baton, and then having the courage to do it. This moment has come,” he declared before adding: “I believe this government can be re-elected… I believe a new Taoiseach (Prime Minister, Editor’s note) will be better placed than me to achieve this. »
What are the political reasons?
His government recently suffered a resounding failure in the referendum to reformulate the 1937 Constitution, and modify outdated references to the family and women. Voters rejected the one on the family, with 67% no, and buried the other proposal to end the “women at home clause”with 74% no, the most negative percentages in the history of the country, although it is very accustomed to referendums. “There are a lot of people who have been wrong and I am certainly one of them,” he admitted as the criticism rained down.
Previously, in 2020, his party Fine Gael suffered an electoral failure, receiving only 20.9% of the vote, far behind Sinn Féin, the radical left party led by Mary Lou McDonald (24.5%) of the vote. Since then, Leo Varadkar’s popularity has suffered a real erosion and the party has experienced internal hemorrhaging. Three of its members, right-hand men of Leo Varadkar, left it. Eleven others have already announced that they will not stand again in the next elections scheduled for 2025. By jumping ship before the next general elections, Leo Varadkar estimated that his party “will now have better chances under a new leader.”
Did he reveal the personal reasons why he resigned?
Those around him speak of a man exhausted by the routine of power. “Politicians are human beings, we have our limits. We give everything until we can’t take it anymore.” he said when announcing his resignation. Leo Varadkar managed the country during the Covid pandemic. A difficult time, Ireland having been confined much longer than most European countries. On personal matters, he remained discreet. But a close friend of the same party, Ciaran Cannon, MP for Galway, spoke in the columns of the Irish Times “the toxicity of politics these days, and social media making the pace of politics relentless”. It reveals that ccomments on the Prime Minister from anonymous accounts, went “from very personal insults to death threats”.
Its defenders prefer to recall its positive results. As during his first term 2017-2020, when he managed to secure EU support for the support mechanism to avoid a hard border with Northern Ireland during Brexit negotiations with the United Kingdom. United. They also recall his commitment to the 2018 referendum which legalized abortion. Leo Varadkar is the first head of the Irish executive with an immigrant background – his Indian doctor father married an Irish nurse – and homosexual, in a country where until 1993, it was a crime. He undoubtedly played an important role in the transformation of Ireland from a socially conservative Catholic society towards secularism and pluralism.
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