Reykjavík Grapevine - 08.04.2016, Page 18

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Sigmundur
In March, Anna Sigurlaug Pálsdóttir,
the wife of outgoing Prime Minis-
ter Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson,
posted a status update on Facebook
that seemed to come out of nowhere.
In that post, she went into some detail
about a company called Wintris Inc.
Located in the British Virgin Islands,
this company was owned by her, and
was tasked with managing the assets
she received as an inheritance. Why
she made this post would come to light
a couple weeks later, with a remark-
able investigative news broadcast that
would end up unseating Sigmundur
Davíð and, at the time of this writing,
possibly dissolving Parliament alto-
gether.
The news that the Prime Minister's
wife had an offshore company was
galling to many Icelanders, and not
just because of the obvious conflict
of interest. Sigmundur Davíð rose to
power as a self-appointed crusader
for the Icelandic króna. He talked a lot
about the importance of staying out of
the EU. He called the króna “the stron-
gest indexed currency in the world.”
He presided over capital controls, tout-
ed the importance of keeping busi-
ness in Iceland, and railed against the
claimants on Iceland's fallen banks as
“vultures”≠while neglecting to men-
tion that Wintris, his wife's own com-
pany, was one of the vultures in ques-
tion.
This prompted some of the usual:
protests planned, a petition in circu-
lation calling for his resignation, his
assurances that he did nothing wrong.
It seemed like just yet another road
bump on Highway Sigmundur, and
that it might even blow over in a couple
days. That all changed on April 3.
That evening, thousands of Ice-
landers tuned in to public broadcast-
ing station RÚV to watch a special
edition of the investigative news
show ‘Kastljós’. While we knew that
the programme was going to concern
Sigmundur’s offshore banking activi-
ties, no one was prepared for what the
show revealed. But what the concerted
efforts of German newspaper Sued-
deutsche Zeitung, the International
Consortium of Investigative Journal-
ism (ICIJ) and Reykjavík Media would
reveal to the nation—and the world
at large—sparked possibly the largest
protest demonstration in Icelandic
history, and the unraveling of the rul-
ing coalition of the Progressive Party
and the Independence Party.
As I write this, the man who was
Prime Minister on Monday is today
on his way out of that office, to be re-
placed by one of his own. Maybe. We'll
get to that later.
Investigative jour-
nalism, live on TV_
The nation watched as the show re-
vealed that some 2 terrabytes of data—
the largest leak of its kind in history—
from Mossack Fonseca, a Panamanian
offshore provider, has implicated pow-
erful figures from around the world
in the use of tax shelters, letterbox
companies and offshore accounts to
conceal or obfuscate their financial
activities. Amongst these people were
at least three Icelandic government
ministers, including the PM, at least
three former and current members of
Reykjavík City Council, and hundreds
of other Icelanders.
Things came to a dramatic head
when footage of an interview the
Prime Minister took with Swedish
television company SVT was aired.
This footage, which has circled the
globe, shows the Prime Minister being
asked some pointed questions about
tax shelters and the people who use
them. Once SVT was joined by Icelan-
dic journalist Jóhannes Kr. Kristjans-
son of Reykjavík Media, Sigmundur's
attitude went from wary to outright
defensive, accusing the two journal-
ists of ambushing him and declaring
that he had nothing to hide even as he
walked out of the interview.
The video went viral. Numerous in-
ternational news outlets picked up on
it. Even Edward Snowden commented
on it. By Monday morning there were
few people in the country who hadn't
seen it. The rumblings of mass dis-
content began. Overnight, thousands
more had signed the petition call-
ing for his resignation, and hundreds
more joined the ranks of those intend-
ing to join the day's protests. Now we
all knew why Sigmundur's wife had
made that Facebook post: a disastrous
interview, which his assistants de-
manded never be aired, and which he
apparently never even mentioned to
other members of his own party.
This could have been Sigmundur's
moment to step aside gracefully, with
dignity. Instead, he appeared before
the nation on live television to apolo-
gise for his behaviour during the in-
terview, repeating the mantra that he
had done nothing wrong, and that he
wasn't even considering resigning.
Firing a shotgun in
an avalanche zone__
This statement did not have the effect
the Prime Minister was probably hop-
ing for. Instead of putting himself in
a safer position, Sigmundur had effec-
tively fired a shotgun in an avalanche
zone.
Five hours later, some 23,000 peo-
ple had converged on Parliament, an
Icelandic record, demanding his resig-
nation and new elections. Just to give
you a sense of scale, bear in mind that
Iceland is a country of about 320,000
people. Monday's protests were the
equivalent of some 2.3 million people
protesting outside the US Congress.
In fact, so much debris was hurled at
the parliamentary building—eggs,
skyr, toilet paper and bananas all went
flying—that Members of Parliament
reportedly had difficulty seeing the
thousands of angry Icelanders outside
their windows.
The protests even took the police
by surprise. They had failed to close
off Pósthússtræti, the street which
roughly flanks the west side of Par-
liament, and cars were trapped in
the incoming sea of people. Drivers
gave up, abandoning their cars. The
crowd swelled, spilling into adjoining
streets. Fireworks were set off. This
was all starting to look very familiar.
As late afternoon became evening,
2009 was very much on everyone's
minds. Icelanders speculated, in the
bars and cafés around downtown, in
their homes and on the streets, wheth-
er we had just witnessed the first day
of another popular movement—barely
seven years after the previous one—
that would once again break the rul-
ing coalition and force early elections.
By all accounts this was a safe bet to
make, and still is. But nothing pre-
pared us for what would happen on
Tuesday.
Who the hell is the
Prime Minister?____
That morning, the Prime Minis-
ter—following in the footsteps of his
wife—turned to Facebook to speak
to the general public, expressing the
desire to dissolve Parliament and get
early elections underway. There was
much rejoicing. The Prime Minister
then went directly to the residence of
President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson,
who had just come home that morn-
ing, having cut short his personal
business in the US. After 40 minutes,
the Prime Minister emerged, only
to quickly duck into his car and get
whisked away with barely a word to the
press who were waiting outside. That
was the first sign that something was
amiss in this whole dissolution of Par-
liament/early elections thing.
The second sign was when the
President called for a press confer-
ence shortly after the meeting. There,
he informed reporters that the Prime
Minister had contacted him person-
ally, asking for a meeting. He said the
Prime Minister brought his dissolu-
tion and early elections idea to the
✂ Instead of
putting himself in
a safer position,
has
effectively fired
a shotgun in an
avalanche zone.

Feature Story:
The Panama Papers
& Iceland

The Unraveling Of A
Government: The Panama
Papers And Iceland
By Paul Fontaine
18