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posted by janrinok on Tuesday November 01 2016, @12:52AM   Printer-friendly
from the who-would-have-thought-it? dept.

Iceland's Election: Left-Leaning Parties (Including Pirates) Win Total of 27 Seats

from the the-times-they-are-a'changing dept.

Common Dreams reports

Saturday night's election results show [that] Iceland's Pirate Party [...] won 10 seats, more than tripling its three seats in the last election. The Left-Green Party also won 10 seats.

Birgitta Jonsdottir, the leader of the Pirate Party, said she was satisfied with the result. "Whatever happens, we have created a wave of change in the Icelandic society", she told a cheering crowd early Sunday morning [October 30].

The left-leaning parties--the Left-Greens, the Pirates, and two allies--won a total of 27 seats, just short of the 32 required to command a majority in Iceland's Parliament, the world's oldest.

The governing center-right Progressive party lost more than half of its seats in the election which was triggered by Prime Minister Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson's resignation in April in the wake of the leaked Panama Papers which revealed the offshore assets of high-profile figures.

Current Prime Minister Sigurdur Ingi Johannsson [resigned October 30].

The anti-establishment Pirate Party, which was founded in 2012, had said it could be looking to form a coalition with three left-wing and centrist parties.

The Pirates' core issues are: direct democracy, freedom of expression, civil rights, net neutrality, and transparency, all set out in a popular, crowdsourced draft of a new national Constitution that the current government has failed to act on. They also seek to re-nationalize the country's natural resource industries, create new rules for civic governance, and issue a passport to Edward Snowden.

[Continues...]

Iceland's Pirate Party Gains Seats, but No Majority

Iceland's Pirate Party has gained 7 seats following the parliamentary election, bringing its total to 10 out of 63:

Iceland's Pirate Party has tripled its seats in the 63-seat parliament, election results show. It is in joint second place with the Left-Greens - with 10 seats each. But their centre-left coalition fell short of a majority to form a government. The governing Progressive Party lost more than half of its seats in the poll triggered by the resignation of Prime Minister Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson. Its junior partner, the Independence Party, has come top with 21 seats.

Prime Minister Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson stepped down in April in the wake of the leaked Panama Papers which revealed the offshore assets of high-profile figures. Current Prime Minister Sigurdur Ingi Johannsson resigned on Sunday.

Icelandic parliamentary election, 2016

Previously: Iceland's Pirate Party Tops Polls Ahead of National Elections


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 01 2016, @10:46AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 01 2016, @10:46AM (#421208)

    NP. The MPs already got a 3K/month (USD) salary raise (which is, BTW, more than the minimum wage in Iceland).

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 01 2016, @10:48AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 01 2016, @10:48AM (#421209)