Reykjavík Grapevine - 08.04.2005, Page 18

This would be more acceptable, were it not that, even on the
day Bobby Fischer was granted citizenship with a unanimous
vote in Alþingi (40 for, 2 abstaining, 21 absent), after less than
13 minutes of discussion, there was rampant grumbling in
Iceland about giving Fischer citizenship at the same time that
many other foreigners were facing tougher immigration laws.
While there were no official polls at the time, a Gallup Poll
taken this April, eight days after the vote, suggests 40% of
Iceland was opposed to granting citizenship to Fischer, with
only 35% believing it was a good decision.
The Grapevine staff called all party offices on the day
citizenship was awarded to ask how the Alþingi, a symbol of the
effectiveness of democracies, could so inaccurately reflect public
opinion.
Kolbrún Halldórsdóttir, vice chairman of the Left Green Party,
admitted that she may have guessed wrong on the public’s
preferences. “We think we know the public opinion just by
breathing in the same air as the people next to us. Maybe this is
wrong... but this is a small community. We’re not very used to
opinion polls.”
She went on to point out that if the Left Green Party voted
against public opinion in this one case, the country was opposed
to granting Fischer a special exception to the immigration laws.
The Left Green party voted for Fischer under the assumption
that the laws need to be changed, and that this would be a first
step.
Guðrún Ögmundsdóttir, MP for the Social Democratic Party,
the second largest party in Alþingi, admitted that she too might
have voted against popular opinion. She openly admitted that
“in some cases the parliament listens to the people, in some
cases it doesn’t.” To her defense, she pointed out the surprising
fact that despite her many quotes in international stories on
the Bobby Fischer case, she received only one email regarding
Bobby Fischer. Put simply, the public doesn’t contact her. “I
don’t receive emails,” she told us. However, as with the Left
Green Party, the Social Democrats’ vote on Fischer was a vote
in the “hope that Iceland’s immigration policy relaxes.”
Prominent members of the Independence Party did not
immediately respond to our inquiry. A spokesperson at the
office headquarters, when asked why decisions frequently went
against public opinion, explained, “Even though the polls
show that people aren’t satisfied with some particular doings, I
think... when they look back at the four years of the term they
know that no one could have done better in the whole.”
“Do you mean regarding the economy?” we asked.
“The economy and other things. Things like independence,” we
were told.
From the Progressive Party, a member of the coalition
government, we got surprising comments. A spokesman with
the office pointed out that a) the party has no stance on Fischer
and b) that his “personal opinion is that the vote shouldn’t have
gone through.”
Indeed the Progressive Party was the only party with members
who abstained: two MPs from their party, Dagný Jónsdóttir and
Birkir Jónsson, disagreed with Alþingi—though not strongly
enough to vote no.
Iraq Revisited
While we were still making our rounds asking why votes
were so far from public opinion, the Alþingi released another
shocking announcement, one that escaped close examination in
any local media. On March 30, the Foreign Affair’s Committee
of Alþingi announced that it was finished investigating
wrongdoing in allowing Iceland to join the Coalition of the
Willing without public discussion. Opposition party members
were understandably upset, but they admitted they had no
recourse.
Kolbrún Halldórsdóttir laughed when we stated we didn’t
understand how it was possible for the investigation to be
concluded with no discussion of findings. “The ministers have
been hiding from our demands that they stand in parliament
and answer our questions. They don’t want to answer questions.
The statements of the prime minister and foreign minister have
only been that they made the decision, that they were in the
position to do that, end of discussion.”
So two people can decide if a country goes to war, even if the
country clearly demonstrates a wish not to enter war?
“Apparently,” Halldórsdóttir told us. She then added, “Political
activists are needed in Iceland... badly.”
But there are political activists in Iceland. Over 4,000 Icelanders
recently purchased an advertisement in the New York Times to
protest Iceland’s membership in the Coalition of the Willing. It
appeared January 21, 2005. To very little fanfare.
Why was there no reaction?
First, the ad came out almost two years after Iceland joined
the Coalition of the Willing. It also went in to an American
newspaper after the presidential elections had brow-beaten
those protesting Iraq. If the ad could have affected anything, it
was anywhere from two months to two years too late.
Another reason few people reacted to the ad is this: Iceland is
a democracy, and national elections were held a month and a
half after the country’s induction into the Coalition was openly
admitted. If 84% of the population was opposed to the war,
and if Iceland has a high voter turnout rate, how could the two
parties involved in taking the country to war get re-elected?
What were New York Times readers to think when told that
the country with a strong democratic tradition couldn’t come
close to convincing its parliament to act in its interest?
Hans Kristjánsson, a key organizer of the advertisement, had no
answer for me. Speaking the evening after the investigation into
Iraq was closed, he seemed disheartened.
“The sheer majority in Alþingi thinks of itself as the ruler of the
country and it doesn’t have to take any account of the minority.
They seem to be less and less in contact with the people in this
country and more and more isolated...With every decision they
make, they seem to be distancing themselves from democracy.
One can claim democracy is in peril.”
On being told that Iceland was now a despotism, I tried to
lighten the mood. I asked Kristjánsson if there wasn’t one
positive effect of the New York Times ad.
“Prime Minister Ásgrímsson announced there would be
regular press meetings. It is now April and he hasn’t done
anything. The press doesn’t seem to be knocking on his doors,”
Kristjánsson told me.
The New Leaders Step Forth
Kristjánsson’s final complaint struck a chord. He was right. The
prime minister and the foreign minister, the two most powerful
men in Icelandic politics, had disappeared from public view. But
whereas Kristjánsson sees this as defeat, I wonder if this isn’t an
indicator to the contrary.
Two years ago, the complaint was that Davíð Oddsson and
Halldór Ásgrímsson were everywhere, now we hear complaints
that they can’t be found. To the frustration of opposition
parties and protest groups, nothing now sticks to Oddsson and
Ásgrímsson.
But we couldn’t help noticing... in ducking out of the
way of criticism, Oddsson, Ásgrímsson and even Össur
Skarphéðinsson, can’t get into the sun. (Skarphéðinsson, the
chair of the largest opposition party, the Social Democrats, is
viewed as guilty in the same way John Kerry is in America. He
has not made enough of a stand, and he lost when he should
have won.) Suddenly, with the decline of the “Big Three,” we
have seen the new leaders of parliament. Bjarni Benediktsson
stepped forward for the Independence Party with a prominent
role in managing Bobby Fischer discussion as Chair of the
General Committee of Alþingi. For the Social Democrats,
Ingibjorg Sólrún Gísladóttir, former mayor of Reykjavík,
has quickly surpassed Skarphéðinsson in popularity. And the
Progressive Party... they seem to have fallen apart.
Last month saw the Progressive Party with a popularity of 10%,
down from 18% in the last popular election. Then the party
began acting highly irregularly. Members of the Progressive
Party were the first to blow the whistle on Iraq, claiming they
had not met to discuss the war as Ásgrímsson told the Alþingi.
As mentioned earlier, they were the only party to voice concerns
about importing a tax-evading anti-Semite under the auspices of
political asylum. They have also challenged Althingi’s patterns
on gender equality; they proposed a ban on smoking in public
places. This traditionally conservative party has even pitched the
idea of free pre-schools.
To the complaints of many, the Progressive Party is doing
anything that will get them elected. Halldórsdóttir of the
Left Green Party told us, “The Progressive Party is obviously
struggling. The reason their problems are so apparent is that the
guy at the top hasn’t got the talent or the character to unite his
people.”
But the stunts and the new faces have been impressive. While
Halldórsdóttir has complained of Ásgrímsson’s leadership, we
can’t help noticing that a new group of Progressives seems to
have taken over. Under the new leadership, the party is acting
more and more according to popular opinion instead of across
party lines.