REYKJAVIK, Iceland (AP) – Icelanders spoke out Saturday after disagreements over immigration, energy policy and the economy forced Prime Minister Bjarni Benediksson to withdraw from his coalition government and call early elections. Elections for a new parliament are being held.
This will be Iceland's sixth general election since the 2008 financial crisis devastated the North Atlantic island's economy and ushered in a new era of political instability.
Opinion polls show the country could be plunged into chaos once again, with the approval ratings of the three ruling parties plummeting. Mr Benedikson, who was appointed prime minister in April following the resignation of his predecessor, has struggled to cobble together an unlikely coalition between the conservative Independence Party, the centrist Progressive Party and the Green Left Movement.
Iceland, with a population of around 400,000, is proud of its democratic tradition and calls itself perhaps the world's oldest parliamentary democracy. The island's parliament, Althingi, was founded in 930 by the Norsemen who settled the country.
Severe weather continued in the sub-Arctic country, with heavy snow blocking roads in many areas and threatening to prevent some voters from going to polling stations on Saturday. Weather conditions may also delay the delivery of ballot boxes to vote counting centers after voting closes at 10pm (22:00 GMT).
Here are some things to look out for in the contest:
Voters will elect 63 Althingi members and allocate seats both by constituency and proportional representation. A party needs at least 5% of the vote to win a seat in parliament. Eight political parties will be represented in the parliament that will be abolished, and 10 parties are contesting this election.
Voter turnout has traditionally been high by international standards, with 80% of registered voters voting in the 2021 parliamentary elections.
Iceland, a windswept island near the Arctic Circle, typically holds elections during the warmer months of the year. However, on October 13, Prime Minister Benediksson decided that the coalition government could no longer continue and requested President Hala Tomasdóttir to dissolve Althingi.
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“The weakness of this society is that we don't have very strong political parties and we don't have very strong leaders in any of them,” said Vilhjalmur Bjarnason, a former member of parliament. “We don’t have compelling people with vision…That’s very difficult for us.”
Iceland's political divide arose after the 2008 financial crisis, when the country's debt-ridden banks collapsed and sparked years of economic turmoil.
The crisis has sparked anger and distrust of the political parties that have traditionally been in power, with new parties ranging from the environmentally-minded Left-Green Alliance to the Pirate Party, which champions direct democracy and individual freedom. prompted birth.
“This is one of the consequences of the economic collapse,” said Eva H. Óndóttir, a political science professor at the University of Iceland. “It's just that the landscape has changed. Political parties, especially the older ones, may be hoping that things will go back to the way things were before, but that's not going to happen.”
Like many Western countries, Iceland is struggling with rising costs of living and immigration pressures.
Inflation peaked at an annual rate of 10.2% in February 2023 due to the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Inflation slowed to 5.1% in October, but remains high compared to neighboring countries. Last month, the US inflation rate was 2.6%, while the European Union's inflation rate was 2.3%.
Iceland is also struggling to accommodate a growing number of asylum seekers, creating tensions within the small, traditionally homogenous country. The number of migrants seeking asylum in Iceland has soared from a previous average of less than 1,000 to more than 4,000 in each of the past three years.
Repeated volcanic eruptions in the country's southwest have displaced thousands of people and strained finances. A year after the first eruption forced the evacuation of the town of Grindavik, many residents remain without safe housing, prompting complaints that the government has been slow to respond.
But Iceland's tourism boom has further exacerbated the lack of affordable housing. Onnudóttir said young people were struggling to get their foot onto the housing ladder as short-term vacation rentals reduced the housing stock available to local residents.
“Housing is becoming a big issue in Iceland,” she says.
