Catherine Connolly elected as Ireland’s 10th president with landslide victory

London: Independent politician Catherine Connolly has won Ireland’s presidential election and will serve as the country’s 10th president after receiving 63.36 per cent of first preference votes, according to official results released.  The 68-year-old candidate, backed by several left-wing parties including Sinn Fein, competed with Fine Gael’s Heather Humphreys, a former government minister, in the election that kicked off on Friday. The results, announced on Saturday evening (local time), show a landslide for Connolly, as was predicted by opinion polls, with 914,143 first preference votes. Humphreys, who won 29.46 per cent of first preference votes, has congratulated Connolly on becoming “a president for all of us” on Saturday afternoon, before the full results were released. A third candidate on the ballot, the Fianna Fail-backed Jim Gavin, withdrew from the race earlier in October following a controversy over a rental dispute, reports Xinhua news agency. (IANS)

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