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Europe
Higgins wins Ireland's presidential election: final count
2011-10-30
(Xinhua) -- Irish poet Michael D. Higgins has won the country's presidential poll, according to a final count Saturday afternoon.

Higgins secured 1,007,104 ballots while his main rival and independent candidate Sean Gallagher got 628,114. The total poll was 1,771,762.

In Dublin Castle, returning officer Riona Ni Fhlanghaile officially announced that Higgins has been elected Ireland's ninth president.

Ireland has a complex voting system for the presidential elections. In this election, the total poll was 1,771,762. The quota, or the number of votes needed to be elected, is 885,882.

Higgins, a veteran politician of the Labor Party and a minister of culture and the arts in the 1990s, will take over from incumbent President Mary McAleese, who has served the maximum two terms for a total of 14 years.

About 56 percent of 3.1 million eligible voters in the country went to the polls Thursday to elect the country's president from a record number of seven candidates. The race is regarded as one of the most competitive in Ireland's history.
Posted by:Fred

#7  Glenmore---Ireland is a good place. I will be your holiday consultant again. I have maps with annotations of points of hysterical historical interest, which include notations of all the pubs I visited from County Kerry to the south to Malin Head in the north. Pay no heed to the nutcases in Dublin.
Posted by: Alaska Paul   2011-10-30 16:59  

#6  Ireland was next up on my list of desired vacations (after checking off Alaska this past summer) - think I'll defer for now.
Posted by: Glenmore   2011-10-30 16:36  

#5  Credit downgrade in 3, 2, 1.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles   2011-10-30 11:05  

#4  This guy is vehemently anti-American and embraces every communist tyrant out there. Fortunately, this is a ceremonial role, and he was probably put into it to keep him out of trouble.
Posted by: Anonymoose   2011-10-30 09:26  

#3  Careful SteveS, in olden times Irish bards been known to kill people with a song.
Posted by: gr(o)mgoru   2011-10-30 06:10  

#2  Yeah, maybe Paul Krugman's available.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain   2011-10-30 00:47  

#1  A poet? Ireland certainly has grand traditions of poetry and whiskey, and I hate to be critical, but just maybe an economist would come in handy about now.
Posted by: SteveS   2011-10-30 00:16  

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