Ireland chooses a very different leader
Print Edition
LEO Varadkar was elected Ireland’s prime minister yesterday, making the 38-year-old son of an Indian immigrant the once-staunchly Catholic country’s first gay premier and the youngest person to hold the office.
Despite inheriting Europe’s fastest-growing economy, he will face immediate challenges in the shape of neighboring Britain’s exit from the European Union, a political crisis in Northern Ireland and a housing crisis at home.
Varadkar succeeded Enda Kenny this month as leader of the governing Fine Gael party, with colleagues pinning their hopes of an unprecedented third term on the straight talking Varadkar, who they believe can widen their appeal in elections that may be triggered as soon as next year.
Varadkar’s elevation marks another chapter in the social change that has swept through the country of 4.6 million people that only decriminalized homosexuality in 1993 and legalized divorce two years later.
“As the country’s youngest holder of this office, he speaks for a new generation of Irish women and Irish men, he represents a modern, diverse and inclusive Ireland,” Kenny told parliament.
But it is Varadkar’s policies that will attract more scrutiny at home with opponents warning that the former health, tourism and social protection minister, who first joined the center-right party aged 17, would nudge it further to the right.
Varadkar has pledged to introduce a less ambitious debt reduction target than the one set by Kenny’s government last year and lobby the European Union for additional leeway to free up funding for much needed infrastructure projects.
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