Simon Harris has been appointed as Ireland’s next prime minister by the Fine Gael party following an uncontested election.
The 37-year-old, who was appointed as the party leader, said it was the “absolute honour of his life” to be appointed. He will take over from Leo Varadkar, who announced his resignation on Wednesday.
Harris secured endorsements for a leadership bid from a majority of Fine Gael party colleagues, prompting his potential rivals to rule themselves out.
With nominations closing at 1300 GMT Sunday and no challengers emerging, party official Willie Geraght declared Harris as winner hours later at a convention in Athlone, west of Dublin. Harris will become Ireland’s youngest ever “taoiseach” (chieftain) and will face a formidable to-do list, including tackling housing and homelessness crises amid intensifying criticism of government policy on asylum seekers.
He will also urgently seek to galvanise his struggling party, which lags third in polls as key elections loom. Fine Gael slumped to third place at the last general election in 2020, well behind the largest party, the leftist-nationalist Sinn Fein.
