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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

Iceland's Prime Minister will resign following the discovery of offshore bank accounts [npr.org] linked to him, found in the leaked Panama Papers [soylentnews.org]:

Icelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson resigned Tuesday, days after a massive data leak known as the Panama Papers linked him to secret offshore bank accounts. With Gunnlaugsson on his way out, his deputy in Iceland's Progressive Party, Sigurdur Ingi Johannsson, will lead the country, according to Godjon Helgason, a reporter at Icelandic National Broadcasting Service who spoke to NPR's Newscast unit.

[...] Gunnlaugsson intends to remain the head of Iceland's Progressive Party, FastFT reports [ft.com]. Earlier Tuesday, Gunnlaugsson had asked Icelandic President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson to call early elections and dissolve the current Parliament, the BBC reports [bbc.com], adding that Grimsson refused.

On Sunday, the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung [sueddeutsche.de], along with other international news outlets that collaborated on the story, published a wave of reports about the murky underworld of shell companies and offshore bank accounts. The reporting was based on a massive trove of leaked emails and other documents from a Panamanian law firm.

If general elections are held anytime soon, Iceland's Pirate Party could dominate the results [icelandmonitor.mbl.is]:

Iceland's Pirate Party would transform the make-up of the country's parliament ('Alþingi') if general elections were held today, latest polling figures suggest. As reported by national broadcaster RÚV [www.ruv.is] yesterday (link in Icelandic), a new Gallup poll gives the party – which stands for direct democracy, freedom of information, and civil and political rights – 36.1% of the vote. By way of contrast, the Pirates received 5.1% of the vote in the last Alþingi elections in 2013 – only just making the 5% threshold required to return an MP.

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