According to an opinion poll, results released on Friday most of the voters in Ireland want their Prime Minister, Brian Cowen to step down from his post in the next general election which is to be held officially in the year 2012. 61% of the voters said they wanted the current prime minister to step down while 29% said he should stay on his post and 10% said they had no option to select.

The opinion pool was carried out in last Monday and Tuesday with a sample of 1000 voters aged 18 or higher and the margin of error of this poll was plus or minus 3% only.

People also voted for the desired successor of the prime minister and the result showed that 39% of the voters wanted to see the Finance Minister Brian Lenihan as the successor of the current prime minister, 18% of the voters voted for the Minister of Foreign Affairs Michaeal Martin, 8% of the voters voted for the Minister for Tourism and Culture and Sport, Mary Hanafin and 6% of them voted for Justice Minister Dermot Ahern as the next prime minister.

Ireland had suffered a lot with the global economic crisis which would be big factor in the next general election.