Iceland - 2021 Election - Parliament
Iceland is a parliamentary republic with a directly-elected president serving as head of state. Legislative power is vested with the unicameral parliament (Althingi). Executive power is exercised by the government led by the prime minister. Iceland’s parliament Althing, the oldest in the world, has 63 seats, which means at least 32 seats are needed for a majority government. The unicameral Icelandic parliament is composed of deputies directly elected for four-year terms.
The parliamentary elections scheduled for 25 September 2021 are primarily regulated by the Constitution and the Parliamentary Elections Law. Constitutional and electoral reform processes, viewed as consultative and inclusive, have been ongoing for several years. The legislation provides that the president can formally set the date of the elections only after parliament has been dissolved. On 12 August, the president announced both the dissolution of the parliament and the election date for 25 September.
For the purpose of parliamentary elections, the country is divided into six multi-member constituencies. Iceland uses the d’Hondt method for seat allocation, whereby 54 seats are allocated at the constituency level with no electoral threshold applied, and the remaining 9 seats distributed at the national level among parties that passed the 5 per cent nationwide threshold. These nine ‘adjustment seats’ are intended as a measure to ensure proportional representation of parties at the national level. Notwithstanding this provision, some interlocutors opined that proportional distribution of seats is not sufficiently respected to the detriment of smaller political parties.
Citizens over 18 years of age are eligible to vote, and there are some 255,000 registered voters. Voter registration is passive, and voter lists are extracted from a nationwide population register; lists are available for scrutiny ten days prior to the elections. No concerns were expressed regarding the accuracy of the voter lists.
Political parties and candidates may receive funds from both public and private sources. There are no specific provisions for campaign finance reporting, and parties’ annual financial reports are to be submitted to the oversight body by 1 November of the next year. Contributions from anonymous, state and foreign donors are not allowed. There is no expenditure ceiling for parties.
Television is the main source of political information, followed by online media, social networks and daily newspapers. The public broadcaster RÚV and the privately owned Channel 2 are the main newsoriented TV channels profiting from the highest viewership. The print media still enjoy a strong position in society, despite declining circulation. Some observers have raised the issues of concentration of media ownership and shrinking diversity of opinions in the mainstream media available to the electorate. The media are legally obliged to ensure objective and impartial news and plan to cover the campaign with a variety of formats, including debates.
The rising unemployment and economic recovery following the COVID-19 pandemic are anticipated by most interlocutors to overwhelmingly dominate the campaign discourse. Poverty, climate change, fairer wealth distribution and the ongoing constitutional reform also featured as important topics. Interlocutors expected the campaign to take place via broadcast and print media as well as social networks, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube. Political parties also envisaged to revert back to traditional campaign outreach methods, including personal meetings with voters, once COVID-19 restrictions were lifted.
Iceland voted 25 September 2021 in an election that could see its unprecedented left-right coalition lose its majority, despite bringing four years of stability after a decade of crises. With the political landscape more splintered than ever, the process of forming a new coalition could be more complicated than in the past.
Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir, whose Left-Green Movement had never led a government before, was seeking a second mandate but the large number of parties could get in her way. Opinion polls suggested a record nine parties out of 10 were expected to win seats in the Althing, Iceland’s almost 1,100-year-old parliament. That made it particularly tricky to predict which parties could end up forming a coalition.
With 33 of 63 seats, the outgoing coalition is a mix of the conservative Independence Party, the centre-right Progressive Party, and the Left-Green Movement. Some opinion polls suggest the current coalition will manage to secure a narrow majority but others say it will fail.
While Jakobsdottir was broadly popular, her party was hovering about 10-12 percent in the polls and risked losing several seats. During her four-year term, Jakobsdottir introduced a progressive income tax system, increased the social housing budget and extended parental leave for both parents. She had also been hailed for her handling of the COVID crisis, with just 33 deaths in the country of 370,000. But she has also had to make concessions to keep the peace in her coalition, including a promise to create a national park in central Iceland that is home to 32 active volcano systems and 400 glaciers.
This is only the second time since 2008 that a government has made it to the end of its four-year mandate on the sprawling island. Deep public distrust of politicians amid repeated scandals sent Icelanders to the polls five times from 2007 to 2017.
The Independence Party, which polls credit with about 20-24 percent of the vote, also risked losing seats but was expected to remain the largest political party. Its leader, Finance Minister Bjarni Benediktsson, is a former prime minister who comes from a family that had long held power on the right. He was eyeing the post of prime minister again.
Benediktsson had survived several political scandals, including being implicated in the 2016 Panama Papers leak that revealed offshore tax havens, and was standing in his fifth election. “I’m optimistic, I feel supported,” he told a campaign rally, insisting his party would continue to be “the backbone of the next government”.
But there are five other parties all hot on his heels, credited with 10 to 15 percent of votes. They are the Left-Green Movement, the Progressive Party, the Social Democratic Alliance, the libertarian Pirate Party, and the centre-right Reform Party. A new Socialist Party is also expected to put in a strong showing.
A shattered political landscape will make it difficult to form a new government, but Jakobsdottir may seek a coalition with other left-wing parties that opinion polls suggest will gain support. “If we get such a government, we are going to see some changes when it comes to taxation of the rich, and environmental questions are going to be more important,” said Baldvin Bergsson, a political analyst at broadcaster RUV.
Climate change is an important issue for Icelanders, who like to call their nation the “Land of Fire and Ice” because of its other-worldly landscape of volcanoes and glaciers. Iceland has already pledged to achieve carbon neutrality by 2040, well ahead of most other European nations, but especially younger voters are pushing for even bolder steps.
Left-wing parties are also calling for more government spending on healthcare, which has been the most important topic in the election. Successful weathering of the pandemic and the lifting of coronavirus restrictions has reopened borders, providing a needed boost to the vital tourism sector, which attracted some two million foreign visitors in 2019.
“The pandemic was a huge blow to the important tourism industry,” said Stefania Oskarsdottir, a political scientist at the University of Iceland, adding high public spending has fuelled optimism. “Despite coming out of a deep recession, the average Icelander feels that these are good times,” she said.
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