Reykjavík Grapevine - 04.06.2010, Page 13

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The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 07 — 2010
In the weeks leading up to the mu-
nicipal elections, it seemed no one was
interested. The media took almost no
notice of the elections—candidates had
great problems getting attention. As
usual, the economic collapse and its
aftermath were the main focal points.
April saw the publication of a thor-
oughly researched 2.000 page report
by an investigative committee, as well
as the Eyjafjallajökull eruption, which
disrupted flights all over the Northern
hemisphere.
But then the elections came—and
suddenly they became very interesting.
The result can be likened to a bomb
going off right in the middle of the Ice-
landic political system. The elections in
Reykjavík were especially dramatic—
the capital has always been the venue
of a fierce and quite symbolic contest
between the left and the right.
A PARTy OF ARTISTIC TyPES
But now a party that came out of no-
where celebrates a thumping victory.
It is simply called The Best Party (Besti
flokkurinn), and it is led by Jón Gnarr,
a celebrated comedian and actor. Most
of other people on the party’s list are
what might be labelled as artistic, bo-
hemian types—many of them live in the
centre of Reykjavík, in the so called 101
area. None of these people had been
even remotely involved in politics be-
fore.
All the same, The Best Party won 35
percent of the vote. It is now the larg-
est party in Reykjavík, and it can dictate
how the city will be run for the next four
years. Most likely Jón Gnarr himself
will become mayor, something nobody
would have thought possible a few
weeks ago. The day after the elections,
Jón said he had realised that politicians
were always interfering with his life. “So
why should I not interfere with theirs?”
he asked.
The Best Party started out as a joke,
a parody of the political game. Jón made
all sorts of ridiculous promises about a
polar bear in a park dedicated to do-
mestic animals, about an Alþingi ‘free
of drugs before 2020’. He spoke in stale
political phrases in order to underline
the vacuity of the political debate. But
all the same many insist that, compared
to a lot of the things Jón Gnarr has been
involved with up until now, the joke was
not terribly funny. To parody something
you have to know it—and Jón Gnarr
didn't seem very knowledgeable about
politics.
JóN GNARR ANd HIS COMIC
CHARACTERS
Jón Gnarr's most famous creation is a
person called Georg Bjarnfreðarson,
an overbearing middle-aged bald man
who has featured in three television
series and a popular film. Georg Bjarn-
freðarson, it turns out, is a Swedish
educated Marxist, the son of a militant
feminist who destroyed his childhood, a
lonely and intolerable man who wreaks
havoc wherever he comes. This is bril-
liant comedy with a dangerous edge,
and some part of the left dislikes Jón
Gnarr for this—his creation, Georg,
even looks like Vladimir Lenin.
But it has not always been easy to
distinguish between Jón Gnarr and his
comic characters. He also does stand-
up comedy where he draws upon his
rather unusual life, as a son of elderly
parents, a school boy with attention de-
ficiency, a young punk, a taxi driver, a
writer, a sometimes-Catholic, a worker
at the Swedish Volvo factories, a father
of five. He has no formal education, but
his intelligence seems extremely alert.
He comes through as being rather ob-
sessive: in conversation he often seems
to be thinking about something else.
The impression is that he is not very in-
terested in others beside himself. So it
is quite a riddle how he will perform as
mayor.
JóNSI OF SIGUR RóS AS
PRESIdENT?
But it must be mentioned that in The
Best Party we have other people who
have been quite successful in their
own right—and might not be worse at
running a city than career politicians.
For example, Einar Örn Benediktsson,
Björk's co-frontman in the globally cel-
ebrated pop band The Sugarcubes;
Óttarr Proppé, a bookseller cum-punk/
glam rock singer; and celebrated car-
toonist Hugleikur Dagsson, whose
work is published worldwide. Even if
politicians might find the idea of work-
ing with these types quite strange, they
are undoubtedly creative people.
After the elections Jón Gnarr
seemed both worn out—his mind wan-
dering off—and exuberant. He talked
about having done interviews with The
Wall Street Journal and the German
magazine Stern. He seemed to be flat-
tered by their attention, and even sug-
gested that his way of doing politics—
politics with a sense of humour—could
be exported. Some party members said
their next stop would be the presiden-
cy, with Jónsi, the singer from Sigur rós,
running for president with his partner
Alex Somers by his side.
Of course things have become more
serious. At the time of writing, The Best
Party is in talks with The Social Demo-
cratic Alliance (Samfylkingin) to form a
majority in the city council. This would
take over from the majority held by
the conservative Independence Party
and the marginal Progressive Party
(Framsóknarflokkurinn). In fact politics
in Reykjavík have been very chaotic for
the last decade, with a total of seven
mayors since 2003 (four since 2006).
Samfylkingin, the party of PM Jóhanna
Sigurðardóttir, suffered heavy losses in
the elections, giving a blow to party VP
Dagur B. Eggertsson, who headed the
list in Reykjavík. Jóhanna and Dagur
are not noted for their sense of humour;
so working with a bunch of comedians
might frankly make them look awkward.
CLEAN LEFT GREENS ALSO SUFFER
Of course the victory of The Best Party
is mainly due to the absolute disarray
of politics in Iceland and the lack of
trust in politicians after the total crash
of the economy. The police are now
taking bankers into custody, and politi-
cians that accepted substantial sums of
money from now-discredited financiers
are under great pressure to resign.
One of them did on the eve of the elec-
tions, but to no avail. The perception is
that the parties have not cleaned their
stables; that they are only waiting for
the population to forget their dismal
performance.
But it has to be noted that The Best
Party took a lot of votes from the Left
Greens (Vinstri grænir) who are the
only party among the ‘Big Four’ that
bears no responsibility for the collapse.
The Left Greens, now finally in govern-
ment after years in opposition, have
long been a channel for dissatisfied
voters, but this time they abandoned
the party in droves, especially young
males. It is a bit ironic that the leader
of the Left Greens in Reykjavík is a mili-
tant feminist who in some ways might
be said to resemble Georg Bjarnfreðar-
son's activist mother in the film.
After the election, PM Jóhanna Sig-
urðardóttir remarked that this might
mark the end of the Icelandic party sys-
tem. Traditionally we operate a system
of four parties, which hasn't changed
much through the years. Three of them,
especially the conservative Indepen-
dence Party (Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn)—
really the reigning party in the history
of the republic—the Social Democrats
and the Progressive Party are blamed
for the economic collapse and the ri-
diculous exuberance that preceded it.
The Left Greens are free of guilt in this
sense, but they are blamed for selling
out all their left wing ideals in the pres-
ent government where they share the
power with the Social Democrats—but
which is really controlled by a strict
program from the International Mon-
etary Fund.
vOTERS REvOLT IN AKUREyRI
In other parts of the country the parties
also lost heavily. In Akureyri, which re-
ally is the second capital of Iceland, a
list of independent citizens won a clear
majority, almost wiping out the old par-
ties. In towns such as Hafnarfjörður,
where there was no challenge to ‘The
Big Four’, voters protested by not
showing up or by handing in empty
ballots. True the Independence Party
held out in some of the towns on the
outskirts of Reykjavík where affluent
people reside in their villas and the
standard of living is very high, but it is
said that in these places the support for
the party is so strong that it could field
a bag of potatoes with the party colours
and still win the election.
BOUNd TO FAIL?
The question is whether a similar
challenge could be mounted in parlia-
mentary elections. Unless the present
government falls these are not due for
another three years. The traditional
parties are very weakened. Their lead-
ers face challenges from outside and
within, many of them seem only to be
holding their position for the time being.
The task of the government is gargan-
tuan. Iceland is one of the most heavily
indebted places in the world. The state,
companies, municipalities and individu-
als are riddled with debt—budgets will
have be cut in a way that will surely cre-
ate disturbances.
Another way is of course for the
country to produce its way out of the
crises, but the fishing industry is heav-
ily in debt as well. There is a raging
debate on how fishing quotas are al-
lotted. In the present system, seventy
people basically "own" seventy percent
of the fish that swim in the sea around
Iceland. Energy is also a major issue—
whether our energy resources, hydro-
electric and geothermal, should be
used for heavy industry, i.e. aluminium
factories, and to what extent foreign-
ers should be allowed to invest in these
natural resources.
An application to join the European
Union is a further cause of friction.
With a majority of the population hav-
ing turned against the EU, it's difficult
to see that this will lead to anything but
a resounding NO.
So, unsurprisingly, there are de-
mands that the government resign. But
then, the opposition seems anything
but eager to take its place. In an at-
mosphere where trust in politics is at a
freezing point, everybody seems bound
to fail.
All the same, some relief can be de-
rived from the fact that comedians and
musicians seem bound to take over in
Reykjavík, and not populists, right wing
extremists or other baddies. But then
the task that awaits Jón Gnarr and his
bevy of artistic types is to run a city that
has its fair share of debt and not a lot
of money to spend on funny things. To
be realistic: they might just as easily fail
as the other parties; at least it might
be difficult to know what note to strike
when you move from a joke into seri-
ousness.
Egill Helgason is a man of many talents, in case you were wondering. Besides
running a political talk show on Icelandic State TV, he a also runs a literary
programme there. And he blogs a lot for web-site Eyjan.is. Kudos to you, Egill.
EGILL HELGASON
JULIA STAPLES
ILLUSTRATION By LóA HJáLMTýSdóTTIR
Analysis | Egill Helgason, Political and Social Commentator
Joke Party Wins Elections in Reykjavík
A dramatic defeat of an entire political system