Reykjavík Grapevine - 05.10.2012, Page 10

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SUPER JEEP & SNOWMOBILE TOURS
10
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 16 — 2012
in handy when it comes to kicking
out people who want a better life
for themselves.
Iceland’s drug policy is notoriously strict, but at least
the medical community is for the
most part sane.
This month,
the Icelandic
Medicines
Agency (IMA)
approved the
sale of Sativex,
a marijuana-based
medication. Sativex comes in the
form of a throat spray, and contains
THC, the ingredient in marijuana
that produces the high. But before
you dreadlocked, hacky-sack
playing tourists book your ticket to
Iceland, you should bear in mind
that the sale of Sativex comes with
some strict controls: it’s prescrip-
tion based, only available for those
with muscular dystrophy, and can
only be prescribed by approved
neurological experts. You’re better
off just buying beer instead.
Rabbits made the news again! As you’ve no doubt
been following, domesticated Ice-
landic rabbits that were
released into the
wild have been
thriving through
our relatively
warmer winters.
The rabbits have
been experiencing
a population boom
that has extended from the capital
to across southwest Iceland. They
are estimated to number in the
thousands at this point. They are
in fact so numerous that Ævar
Petersen, an expert at The Icelandic
Institute of Natural History, told re-
porters that these rabbits are a part
of Iceland’s natural world, or may
as well be considered as such, even
if they aren’t native to the country.
The institute itself quickly issued
a statement saying that Ævar was
just expressing a personal opinion,
and that they consider rabbits to be
an invasive species. Those institute
guys are no fun.
That’s all right, though, as there was more than
enough fun to go around in
Mosfellsbær. In response the town
— Continued —
Continues over
Iceland’s incumbent Prime Minister
and longest serving active Mem-
ber of Parliament Jóhanna Sig-
urðardóttir announced her retire-
ment from politics last week. In a
letter to members of her party, The
Social Democratic Alliance, she
said she would not seek re-election
and would retire as chair of the par-
ty at the end of the current term this
spring, closing a political career
that spans over 40 years.
Jóhanna first became involved in poli-
tics in 1966, when she occupied the
fifth seat on the ticket for Reykjavík
City Council with the now-defunct So-
cial Democratic Party. She had then re-
cently been elected head of the Stew-
ardess Union. Jóhanna remained active
in the union struggle for years, before
(and after) taking a seat in Parliament
in 1978 as a member of the Social Dem-
ocratic Party.
In 1987, Jóhanna, by then the vice-
chair of the party, was appointed to the
cabinet, as Minister for Social Affairs,
a post she held until 1994, which was
a turbulent year in her political career.
She formed her own political party,
National Awakening, after losing an
in-party election for the leadership of
Social Democratic Party (the two par-
ties would later re-emerge, along with
other small parties from the left wing to
form the current Social Democratic Al-
liance). In a fiery farewell speech to the
1994 Social Democratic Party congress,
Jóhanna made the famous claim that
“her time would come,” (since then an
Icelandic catchphrase) before storming
off stage.
And that it did. Following the near-
collapse of Icelandic society in the
wake of the financial meltdown of
2008, Jóhanna was called upon to take
charge of the rebuilding efforts. For the
2009 parliamentary election, she was
asked to lead the Social Democratic
Alliance, a party that was likely to be
in a key position after the election. Cit-
ing her long-standing reputation as a
champion of social welfare and just
causes, her party claimed that she was
the one person who could unite a frag-
mented nation after the uproar of 2008.
Following the election of 2009,
Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir became the
first female prime minister in the history
of Iceland, and the first openly gay per-
son to become the head of government
in the world. Jóhanna and her spouse
were also one of the first gay couples to
become legally wedded in Iceland after
her government voted, unopposed, to
allow it in 2010.
No Icelandic politician has ever
been faced with a task quite like the
one Jóhanna took on in leading the
government post-financial collapse of
2008. The results of Jóhanna’s reform
government are up for debate, and in all
fairness, it is probably too early to pass
judgment on her accomplishments as
prime minister, one way or the other.
But ideology and methodology
aside, there is no denying that the Ice-
landic political landscape just became
a little flatter with Jóhanna’s retirement.
She has been one of the most colour-
ful Icelandic politicians of the era,
and transgressed boundaries for both
women and gay people. However the
judgment of history will come down on
her government, she always fought the
good fight.
Farewell Jóhanna Looking back at the long
political career of PM Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir
Words
Sveinn Birkir Björnsson
Photo
Örlygur Hnefill
Politics | The end
“
She has been one of the
most colourful Icelandic
politicians of the era, and
transgressed boundaries
for both women and gay
people „
Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir CV
Date of Birth: October 4th, 1942
Homepage: www.althingi.is/johanna
E-mail: johanna@althingi.is
Party: The Social Democratic Alli-
ance
Prime Minister.
Chairman of the Social Democratic
Alliance since 2009.
Parliamentary Career
Member of Althingi for the Reykja-
vík Constituency 1978-2003, for the
Reykjavík South Constituency 2003-
2007 and for the Reykjavík North
Constituency since 2007.
Deputy Speaker of Althingi
1979,1983-1984 and 2003-2007.
Ministerial Career
Prime Minister since 2009.
Minister of Social Affairs and Social
Security 2007-2009.
Minister of Social Affairs 1987–1994.
A number of other female MPs have announced their retirement from politics this
month. Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir and Siv Friðleifsdóttir to name a few.
NEWS IN BRIEF
NEWS IN ICELAND
OCTOBER