The 37-year-old Simon Harris will become the youngest prime minister of Ireland

DUBLIN: With elections approaching, Simon Harris, who is expected to become Ireland’s youngest-ever taoiseach (prime minister), will be counting on his social media prowess and newfound popularity to turn around his party’s ailing finances.

The 37-year-old has already earned the moniker “TikTok Taoiseach” (pronounced “Tee-shock”) from the media. He surpasses the previous record-holder, Leo Varadkar, who was 38 when he assumed the top position in 2017.

Following Varadkar’s unexpected departure on Wednesday, Harris quickly emerged as the front-runner for the centre-right Fine Gael party leadership and, ultimately, as prime minister.
He received the support of most of his party colleagues by Thursday noon, which forced opponents to formally rule themselves out and put a stop to the leadership race before it had started.
Pundits referred to Harris’s almost unchallenged ascent to the leadership as a “coronation” since no other contenders are anticipated to declare their intentions before the nominations deadline on Monday.
“I’m in, I’m ready to step up, and I’m ready to serve,” he said as he formally announced his candidature on the nightly news show of the state broadcaster RTE.
A precipitous climb is expected when the Irish parliament, the Dail, reconvenes on April 9 and Harris is inevitably elected as taoiseach.
He was born in 1986 and raised in the little seaside town of Greystones, which is close to Dublin. His father was a taxi driver.
After a year, he left his journalism and French college studies in Dublin to concentrate on his already bright future in politics.
Harris started a nonprofit after entering parliament by advocating for autism treatments for his younger brother, who has autism.
At sixteen, he joined Fine Gael’s youth section and advanced fast through the party’s ranks.
He was a 22-year-old county councillor when he was elected to parliament in 2011 as the youngest member of the Dail, earning the nickname “Baby of the Dail” at the time.
At the age of 29, he was named health minister in 2016.
In an interview with Hot Press magazine in 2022, he said, “In many ways, my career has been a bit odd; life came at me a lot faster than I expected it to.”
Harris was the health minister for more than four years, during the COVID epidemic, when his communication abilities won him accolades but harsh criticism for his handling of occasional slip-ups and fatalities in nursing homes.
He added that he may be an “awful old idiot at times” after pointing out that the term “Covid-19” doesn’t relate to the year the virus initially appeared but rather to 18 predecessors.
Along with the difficulties surrounding new hospital projects, Varadkar called an election in 2020 in which Fine Gael lost badly and an opposition no confidence vote over ward congestion prompted him to do so.
adept at social media
Harris, a father of two who is married to a cardiac nurse, has become one of Ireland’s most well-known politicians because to his success on social media, particularly TikTok.
Even his detractors acknowledge that he is a gifted speaker. He has served as the minister of higher education since 2020.
Having amassed 1.4 million “likes” on TikTok and hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram and X, he shares material with his fans almost every day.
It has been said that he tries too hard to appeal to younger people in several of his videos and comments.
Harris said to the gathering, “Chillax, I think everyone needs to take a step back here,” during a contentious parliamentary committee hearing.
“Every young person is aware of what a chillax is,” he said in parliament the next day.
Because of his youth and polished communication abilities, his rivals call him “Leo 2.0,” a holdover from a “metropolitan” political style that is disconnected from the larger public.
However, for those who share his excitement, Fine Gael, which is now trailing third in polls ten weeks before local and European Parliament elections and one year before a national election, could find new life in the party.
An Irish Times newspaper source quoted a party comrade as saying, “He has huge energy and huge ambition.”
“Cute, cunning, and astute,” another person said.