By Padraic Halpin
DUBLIN (Reuters) -A vote due on Wednesday in the Irish parliament to elect a new prime minister was delayed by a day after opposition protests over speaking rights for independent lawmakers supporting the incoming coalition government derailed a chaotic sitting.
Micheál Martin was due to be elected prime minister at around 1230 GMT following a coalition deal struck last week between the country’s two large centre-right parties and a group of independent lawmakers after a Nov. 29 election.
The speaker of the lower house of parliament suspended the chamber on four separate occasions before adjourning it until 0900 GMT on Thursday when her attempt to start the vote to elect a prime minister was drowned out by angry opposition lawmakers.
“What we witnessed today was the subversion of the Irish constitution … This has never happened in the history of the state before,” Martin told a hastily arranged press conference.
“The most fundamental obligation of the Dail (parliament) is to elect a taoiseach (prime minister) and indeed to elect a government. That opportunity was denied today by a premeditated, coordinated and choreographed position by the opposition, and particularly by the Sinn Fein Party.”
Outgoing premier Simon Harris, who was due to move to the role of deputy prime minister on Wednesday, called the events “utterly farcical” and “stunt politics on speed.”
The reelected Fine Gael and Fianna Fail-led government is bracing for the return to the White House of U.S. President Donald Trump and had set Trump’s inauguration as a date when it wanted to have new cabinet in place.
The suspension will delay Martin’s appointment of a new team of ministers.
The opposition was protesting against a move by some of the government-supporting independents to retain their extended speaking rights in parliament from the opposition benches. Attempts to solve the dispute between sittings failed.
“The chaos today is solely the responsibility of Fine Gael/Fianna Fail and the group of independents. Stroke politics was taken head on,” David Cullinane, a senior lawmaker from the main opposition Sinn Fein Party, wrote on social media.
(Reporting by Padraic Halpin, additional reporting by Conor Humphries; Editing by Sachin Ravikumar, Wiliam James and Rod Nickel)
