Reykjavík Grapevine - 21.05.2010, Síða 6

6
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 06 — 2010
Politics | Municipal Elections
The Big Four Answer
For Themselves
Us at the Grapevine love the city of Reykjavík. It
is surely our favourite city. We believe it is one
of the best places in the world to do a lot of the
things we like doing. Why else would we live
here?
Since we love it so much, we certainly care
about what goes on here, too, and how the place
is run. And guess what, a week from now we’ll
be voting fresh new city officials in office. This
in mind, we thought we’d get representatives
from “THE BIG FOUR” (Iceland’s “mainstay”
political parties, those that have been around
for a long time and are all part of our “political
establishment”) to answer some questions about
their platform, their parties and their intentions
if voted into office. After all, we are read by a
bunch of folks that will be directly affected by the
elections’ outcome, and who will be casting their
votes for some of them come Election Day.
So we called all of them up, and all of them
were quite enthusiastic to be interviewed. Oh
they had some quips. We said: “Can we please do
this by phone, as we tried the e-mail thing for the
national elections last year and all the answers
came in way too late, and they were all way too
long.” Some of them responded: “No, let’s do this
by e-mail.” To which we responded: “Alright, so
long as you promise to turn in before our dead-
line, and if you promise to keep your answers su-
per brief – a paragraph at most.”
“No problem,” they said.
Well, the results are in. Or not, really. At the time
of writing, the only person whose answers we
have is Einar Skúlason, the chair of the Progres-
sive Party’s municipal team. Dagur B. Eggerts-
son, chair of Samfylkingin’s, answers just made
a *BLINK* sound in our inbox – alas, we are now
past our deadline, so we can’t really print them.
Our printers get super angry if we are late turn-
ing in our issues, so there just needs to be a cut-
off point. All of them knew the deadlines they
had to work with, and all of them said they would
respond in time.
Anyway. Below you may read the answers
from good ol’ Einar, and the questions we posed
to the rest of them. We will be posting the other
parties’ answers on www.grapevine.is as soon as
they come in (if they come in at all), so keep your
eyes glued to that space to read those parties’ mis-
sives to y’all.
ONE LAST THING: there are several other
parties running in the 2010 Reykjavík munici-
pal elections. Besti f lokkurinn (“The Best Party”
– www.bestiflokkurinn.is) is fairly well repre-
sented in our feature, where we try and squeeze a
platform and some sort of policy out of their lead-
er. Frjálslyndi flokkurinn (“The Liberal Party”
– www.xf.is) are also running again, and former
FF man Ólafur F. Magnússon is running under
the moniker Framboð um heiðarleika og alman-
nahagsmuni (“Campaign for honesty and public
interest” – they don’t seem to have a website).
Then there is Reykjavíkurframboðið (“The Reyk-
javík campaign” – www.reykjavikurframbodid.
is), which is an independent campaign “for the
interests of Reykjavík-dwellers”. The Grapevine
loves small, independent parties and campaigns,
and we urge you to check out their platforms.
Einar Skúlason
X-B – The Progressive Party
Interviewed by Paul F. Nikolov
Why should the average Reykja-
vík voter choose your party? What
does it offer that the other parties
do not, in terms of platform, policy,
integrity and skill - i.e. what do you
hope makes it the discerning voter's
party of choice? Keep in mind that
the other parties will likely respond to this question
in a similar manner to yourselves. Why should we
choose you over them?
Well for one, we don't see a need to raise taxes, nor
a need to raise the cost of services beyond what in-
flation requires. We have a three-year plan that was
passed in city hall, and we want to stick to that. Also,
we would like to allow people to affect how things
are discussed. We are proposing a law whereby if
5% of city residents—regardless of age, we could
be talking about 14-year-old students here—sign a
petition asking city hall to bring up a matter for dis-
cussion, then we would be obliged to address that
matter.
What have the Progressives done for the city that
makes you proudest?
Children and teenagers having better chances to
take part in recreational activities. During the last
election, we proposed a discount card for recre-
ational activities (“frístundakort”), which gave par-
ents 25,000 ISK per year for recreational activities.
We want to increase that amount to 40,000 ISK, as
inflation has hit a lot of families hard. Also, I think
it was very important that my predecessor, Óskar
Bergsson, helped Hanna Birna become mayor. I
think that after conflicts within city council, and the
switching back and forth of majorities, this move
created peace within city hall at last.
To what do you attribute the Progressive Party's abys-
mal polling numbers?
The Best Party. I'm pretty sure they're taking sup-
port from everyone. I actually expected more praise
for our renewal, for our change of politics and poli-
cies. I was pretty surprised when that didn't happen.
I suppose it takes a long time to earn trust back,
more than a few months or maybe even a few years.
Do you think people trust the Progressives?
Probably more so in rural areas than in urban ones.
I understand it, though. In the past, the leadership
of the party has taken a decidedly different direc-
tion than the grassroots. Support for the Iraq inva-
sion is a great example of this. I'd say over 90% of
Progressives were against supporting the invasion,
yet (former Minister of Foreign Affairs) Halldór Ás-
grímsson signed on to it. I think this is because the
leadership was more caught up in creating a harmo-
nious coalition with the Independence Party, and
forgot the wishes of the people. My intention is to
make the leadership and the grassroots one and the
same. This is basically my last chance to do that.
Do you believe the media has focused too much on
conflicts within your party?
Yes. I think it's natural for people to disagree. In
fact, I think it's a certificate of good health for party
members to disagree with each other. It's good to
have discussions on issues. It's when parties appear
unanimous that I think it's cause to worry.
I want to give you a chance to clarify what you meant
when you said that if a "þjóðstjórn"—where all par-
ties share power in city hall, instead of there being a
majority and an opposition—were to occur in Reyk-
javík, you wouldn't like to see Hanna Birna as mayor.
It's nothing personal. I also wouldn't want to see
Dagur (Eggertsson, Social Democrat candidate
for mayor) or even myself as mayor in the event of
a þjóðstjórn. If we had that kind of a situation, we
would need a non-politically-affiliated mayor. If
we're creating a totally equal power-sharing system,
it would be too complicated and unrealistic for there
to be a mayor from one of the parties.
Questions for the
Independence Party
By Haukur S. Magnússon
Why should the average Reykjavík
voter choose your party? What does
it offer that the other parties do not,
in terms of platform, policy, integ-
rity and skill - i.e. what do you hope
makes it the discerning voter's party of choice?
The other parties will likely respond to the above
question in a similar manner to yourselves. Why
should we choose you over them?
Reykjavík is an extremely inconvenient city for those
that prefer walking, biking and public transport to
automobiles. One of your campaign promises be-
fore the last municipal elections was "improved
public transport" -- why weren't you able to keep
that promise? Is there a chance we'll see a coherent,
sensible bus schedule, bike paths and more localised
recycling facilities in Reykjavík if you get elected this
time around?
How would you account for the fact that Mayor Han-
na Birna has an approval rating about twice that of
her own party?
Do you stand by your party member Vilhjálmur Vil-
hjálmsson's comments that "Golfing is a great past
time for the unemployed"? Was he misinterpreted or
did he really mean to say that? Why the golf course,
anyway? There are lots of previously committed-
to projects on the backburner due to diminishing
funds — how do you justify 230 million ISK for
building a golf course?
To be honest (and I hope you won't get offended),
The Independence Party isn't doing so great these
days (to be fair, neither are the other parties). A lot
of people want to blame 2008's economic collapse
on your policies and officials, for instance. No one
seems very excited about believing in you nowadays.
Do you feel like you lost the voters' trust? Why do you
think that happened? How do you propose to regain
your position as Iceland's most popular and trusted
party, and do you foresee that being an arduous task?
Questions for the
Social Democratic Alliance
By Haukur S. Magnússon
Why should the average Reykjavík
voter choose your party? What does
it offer that the other parties do not,
in terms of platform, policy, integ-
rity and skill - i.e. what do you hope
makes it the discerning voter's party
of choice?
The other parties will likely respond to the above
question in a similar manner to yourselves. Why
should we choose you over them?
A lot of your campaigns, past and present, speak
about defending our welfare system. In concrete
terms: how do you plan to do that?
Your current platform speaks a lot of the need for
decent city planning. Yet Reykjavík transformed into
a sprawling monster over the last two decades, most
notably while your very party was in power. To what
can we attribute this newfound love for city plan-
ning, and what are your immediate plans to imple-
ment it when in office?
Recent poll results indicate that the voters of Iceland
have lost a lot of faith in the Icelandic party system,
its politics and its officials. This includes your sup-
porters (or former supporters). Why do you think
this is, and how do you plan on winning the public's
trust back?
Your platform states that "welfare and jobs" were the
best way out of our current economic hardship. In all
honesty, this sounds like an empty slogan or catch-
phrase, something that could have been uttered by
every party in every campaign of the last few decades
— so much politispeak. How is it not? What is the
plan?
Questions for the
Left-Green Party
By Paul F. Nikolov
Why should people vote VG? What
sets you apart from any other party? I
don't just mean in the sense of ideas
or attitudes - what specific things
would you do, that no other party
would do?
To what do you attribute the current poll numbers,
with regards to VG?
Many believe, as Progressive MP Eygló Harðardót-
tir pointed out, that VG is responding to the Magma
Energy buy out late in the game. How exactly did VG
fight the initial sale of share of HS Orka, and what
did the party do after the sale was approved?
When VG was in the ruling majority, what happened
to some of the party proposals, such as a better mass
transit system, a better recycling program, and more
affordable kindergartens?
With the right-left-right swing between majorities in
city hall in the recent past, do you believe people have
good reason to be wary of “The Big Four”?
But not really. They eventually might, though.
Words
Haukur S. Magnússon & Paul F. Nikolov
Photography
GAS
Head on to www.grapevine.is/elections
to read the other parties' answers!