NexTV Africa & Middle East

Complete News World

Iceland’s ruling coalition heads for electoral victory

Iceland’s diverse grand coalition, led by Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir of the green left, could continue to rule with a wind in its back.

But the prime minister’s party is losing support and her future in office is not self-evident.

The three ruling parties together get 37 out of 63 seats. Then they could – if they wanted – stay together and avoid new negotiations in a divided parliament. But the balance of power within the alliance is shifting.

Prime Minister Catherine Jacobsdottir’s “Green Left” party falls into the government’s internal hierarchy and becomes the smallest party in it. The biggest winner in the election was the old liberal peasant party Framsteigspartet, which climbed to just over 17 percent of support.

The traditional Icelandic Independence Party wouldn’t, unexpectedly, be the biggest.

In the context of extensive and spoiled government cooperation, the question now is whether Catherine Jacobsdottir can continue as prime minister. After the last elections, it was a demand from the green left to be part of a government with the two most right-wing parties clearly visible.

alternatives It may be the Independence Party and former Prime Minister Bjarne Benediktsson or the leader of the Progress Party Sigurdur Inge Johansson.

After more than a decade marked by a banking crisis and the collapse of governments, the three ruling parties – a left-wing party, a center-right party and a conservative right-wing party – opted to unite under a banner for stability.

It remains to be seen who will task President Gudney Johansson with forming a government.

See also  The outside world responds to "attempted coups" in Mali

In addition to all this, it is clear that all the current ministers of the ruling parties have been re-elected.

The biggest loser in the elections is the Center Party. It was formed two years ago by scandal-ridden ex-prime minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, who resigned and left the Progress Party after revealing secret bank accounts in tax havens. The party loses four seats out of seven.

many The predictions before the elections turned out to be wrong. One of those reasons is that the Radical Socialist Party will go in on the first try, but get no mandate. If it had been entered, the number of parties in Althing would have been higher than ever before.

Above all, experts predicted parliamentary chaos would occur and the government would need to reach out to additional parties. This does not appear to be the case – provided that its three parties continue to coexist.