Irish ex-PM Ahern will not stand

Friday, 31 December 2010 12:00 AM

By politics.co.uk staff

Ireland's long-serving former prime minister Bertie Ahern will not contest the upcoming general election, he has confirmed.

Mr Ahern, prime minister from 1997 to 2008, told a meeting of his local branch of the Fianna Fáil party that his stepping down from Irish politics had been pre-planned for years.

He said: "It was always my plan, and a plan I made clear as long ago as 2002, that I would step down... before I was 60.

"With an election due in the spring and my next birthday, in September, being my 60th, I want to confirm tonight that I will not be a candidate at the next general election."

Mr Ahern's successor Brian Cowen has experienced an unenviable premiership culminating in an 85 billion euro bailout of the Irish economy in return for sweeping austerity measures following a near-collapse of the Irish financial sector.

It is expected that Fianna Fáil will endure a considerable mauling in the election in the new year as a result of the country's economic woes.

Pundits expect the Labour and Fine Gael parties to be the main beneficiaries of any collapse in Fianna Fáil's vote.

Two sitting ministers from the party have also said they will not stand.

Mr Ahern stepped back from his leadership role in 2008 in response to corruption allegations, but will be remembered for his prominent role in bringing about the Good Friday agreement alongside Tony Blair ten years earlier.

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