Leo Varadkar succeeded Micheal Martin as Prime Minister of Ireland this Saturday, in the framework of an unprecedented transfer between the two main parties of the center-right coalition in power.
He exchanges his position as Deputy Prime Minister with Micheal Martin, head of Government since 2020.
Leo Varadkar, a mixed-race and gay doctor, becomes prime minister for the second time, at the age of 43, of an Ireland with a reputation for being very conservative. In 2017, Leo Varadkar, then 38, became Ireland’s youngest prime minister.
“I accept this candidacy with humility and determination and with the desire (…) to offer new hope and new opportunities to all our citizens,” he declared, once his candidacy had been validated by the vote of parliamentarians in extraordinary session.
“I feel honored and privileged to have the opportunity to serve again. And I look forward to tackling this difficult task in the next few hours,” he also said.
Micheal Martin tendered his resignation on Saturday morning during a hearing with Irish President Michael D. Higgins in Dublin. It represents “the honor of a lifetime” to have served as prime minister, he said.
Now Deputy Prime Minister, he has also been appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs and Defense in the new government that was announced on Saturday afternoon. He replaces Simon Coveney who becomes Minister for Trade and Employment.
Coalition with the Greens
Hailing from rival camps during the civil war in the early 20th century, the two centre-right parties (Leo Varadkar’s Fine Gael and Micheal Martin’s Fianna Fail) established this rotating position as part of a coalition with the Greens after the elections. of 2020. .
Leo Varadkar received the support of 87 parliamentarians in a vote on Saturday, while 62 voted against him. The next general elections will be held in the spring of 2025.
Leo Varadkar was born on January 18, 1979 to an Indian immigrant father, a doctor, and an Irish mother, a nurse. In 2003, he obtained his medical degree to become a general practitioner.
His first term as prime minister was marked by Brexit and the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. He had been deemed effective in establishing the first containment, one of the strictest in Europe. He then went back to work as a doctor once a week while running the country.
He had also worked to find a trade deal in 2019 with Britain after Brexit: the “Northern Ireland protocol”, to avoid reinstating a border on the island of Ireland with Northern Ireland. But this protocol is still today a source of tension between London, Dublin and Brussels.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak congratulated Leo Varadkar in a tweet. “I look forward to working with him to ensure all parts of the Belfast (Good Friday) agreements work and continue to work with @MichealMartinTD in his new role,” he wrote.
The 1998 Good Friday Agreement ended three decades of bloody conflict that left 3,500 dead.
Source: BFM TV
