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Ireland’s higher education minister Simon Harris is on course to become the country’s youngest prime minister next month after emerging as the only candidate to lead the centre-right Fine Gael party.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar resigned unexpectedly on Wednesday as party leader, citing unspecified personal and political reasons, and senior figures welcomed the prospect of a leadership contest.
But no rivals emerged in the face of a co-ordinated campaign to endorse Harris, who has previously held the justice and health portfolios. The 37-year old politician also enjoys the widespread backing of his party’s parliamentary group, setting the stage for his “coronation” as Fine Gael leader and confirmation as Ireland’s youngest Taoiseach on April 9.
His two likeliest competitors — Heather Humphreys, social protection minister, and Paschal Donohoe, public expenditure minister and president of the Eurogroup of eurozone finance ministers — both said they would not put their names forward in a leadership process that had been due to run until April 5.
Helen McEntee, justice minister, and Simon Coveney, enterprise minister — senior figures whose names were also in the frame — declined to stand.
Under the leadership contest timetable, nominations were due in by 1pm next Monday but it was not immediately clear if Fine Gael would appoint Harris earlier if he had built up an unassailable lead before then.
A Fine Gael spokeswoman said campaigning scheduled for next week in three cities was still likely to go ahead, even if Harris was unopposed, to give him a chance to set out his stall to the party base.
Harris, who has been a lawmaker since 2011 — never in opposition — comes from County Wicklow, south of Dublin, and burnished a reputation for efficiency while temporarily replacing McEntee as justice minister.
Varadkar’s dramatic resignation made it likely that Ireland’s general election would not now be held until next year, analysts said, to allow the new Taoiseach time to make their mark. Prior to Varadkar’s announcement, expectations had been for an election this autumn.
Varadkar, who was in Brussels on Thursday where he ruled out taking an EU job, had previously been Ireland’s youngest premier when he first took office in 2017 aged 38.
Harris, who has yet commented publicly on his likely premiership, will face the challenge of reinvigorating the party ahead of local and European elections on June 7 and a general election due by March 2025.
Neale Richmond, a junior business minister who was one of the first party figures to endorse Harris publicly, told broadcaster RTÉ he had the “energy, experience and compassion” for the country’s top job.
“Now is the opportunity for a step change [in the party],” he added.
Fine Gael governs in coalition with the centrist Fianna Fáil and the Green party and Varadkar said he believed this coalition could be re-elected in a general election.
But Sinn Féin, the opposition party that is the most popular in the country according to opinion polls, led calls for a general election to be held immediately.
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