Reykjavík Grapevine - 07.10.2016, Blaðsíða 12

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One can't help but envy the two-party
systems of the US and (more or less)
UK while watching the televised de-
bates leading up to next month's par-
liamentary elections. We Icelanders
value our democracy so intensely
that we’ll let anyone join in on the fun
without much hindrance; we now have
twelve parties in the running, which
is fewer than we had three years ago
but still means that practically every
fifteenth adult you meet is running
for office. You're probably wondering
"Who are all those people?" and even
if you're not I'm still going to tell you.
Let's go through them beginning
with the usual suspects—or I guess
you could call them culprits by now.
They're the parties currently repre-
sented in Alþingi.

"Source of mild
amusement"
The party at the helm right now is
called the Progressive Party, a mis-
nomer that's been the source of mild
amusement for so long that the name
has lost all meaning. Put bluntly, the
Progressive Party is anything but pro-
gressive. Founded and funded by farm-
ers and their mafia-like organizations,
its members are moderately skeptical
of immigrants (especially Muslims),
love Icelandic milk and hot dogs, and
are known to make outrageous elec-
tion promises, like actually handing
out government money to people of
their choosing just because they can.
Until very recently the Progressives
were led by our ex-Prime Minister Sig-
mundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, who lost
the PM reigns to his second-in-com-
mand, Sigurður Ingi Jóhannsson after
he got caught up in the Panama Papers
scandal in April, which, again, is why
the term was cut short and we're vot-
ing this fall instead of next spring. Oh,
and then Sigurður Ingi stabbed him in
the back to become party leader and it's
all been good fun.

"High-income
male lawyers"
The Progressives form their coalition
with the Independence Party, Iceland's
right-wing mainstay and the country's
largest party for most of the past centu-
ry. That might be changing, though, and
they have no idea how to deal with it. As
always come election time, this group of
middle-aged, high-income male lawyers
are now trying their hardest to put up
a Scandinavian, social-democratic we-
care-about-the-minnows guise, talking
about the public healthcare and social
security they otherwise pay no mind,
but it's the easiest lie to see through. Ev-
eryone knows that once in power they'll
just cut levies on the wealthy and the
fisheries.

"Middle-aged
middle-class
twats"
On the other side of the spectrum we
find the Left-Greens, led by Iceland's
most popular politician by a mile,
Katrín Jakobsdóttir. Young hipsters
like them because they're feminist so-
cialists, but young hipsters also hate
them because they don't want to sell
alcohol in supermarkets. The middle-
aged middle-class twats like them be-
cause they're conservative as fuck but
the middle-aged middle-class twats
also hate them because they want
to take all their money and give it to
farmers and artists. Can't win 'em all.
At least people semi-know what they
stand for.

"The saddest
sob story"
Just to the right of them are the So-
cial Democrats, the saddest sob story
of them all. Who knows what they're
about anymore. A former powerhouse
that was Iceland's largest party as re-
cently as 2009, they now barely regis-
ter in polls. They lost all relevance once
EU membership, their only differenti-
ator on the left wing, wasn't a hot topic
anymore. Essentially, they want to do
the same things as the urban arm of
the Left-Greens, only halfheartedly.
Surprisingly, that doesn't seem to ap-
peal much to... well, anyone. Let's pour
one out for the homies, but there's no
reason to dwell on them.
"A lot less fun"
We shouldn't forget Bright Future. Led
by charismatic, offbeat metal rocker
Óttarr Proppé, this liberal, artsy left-
leaning troop is a mutation of come-
dian and ex-mayor Jón Gnarr's Best
Party, only a lot less fun. They want to
make politics more friendly—change
the culture—and even though they
did score some arguably populis-
tic points with the general public for
symbolically voting "no" on a highly
controversial eight-year agricultural
agreement Alþingi passed recently,
their biggest win this term is probably
that everyone seems to have forgotten
how spine-tinglingly lame the name
"Bright Future" is. Seriously though,
that's about all they've done.

"Wear gim-
micky T-shirts"
And then there arrrr (get it?) the Pi-
rates. They're huge nerds, they want
to abolish copyright laws, grant Ed-
ward Snowden asylum in Iceland—you
know the drill—and they've been the
high-flyers in polls since forever. They
might be losing momentum and prob-
ably won't end up as Iceland's largest
political party. Fronted by the man
behind the Icelandic Wikipedia and
Birgitta Jónsdóttir of Wikileaks fame,
they emphasize their "radicalism"
and plans for "revolutionary systemic
capsizing" and all that jazz almost to
a scary point, while the most radical
thing they've done to date is wear gim-
micky T-shirts to Parliament.
"Erectile dys-
function"
The only newcomers of note are Viðre-
isn, which roughly translates as the
Restoration Party, but in Icelandic
sounds more like erectile dysfunc-
tion medication. Largely a band of dis-
gruntled, EU sympathetic ex-members
(and ex-leaders) of the Independence
Party, they want systemic change and
to do away with the endemic nepotism
of Icelandic politics and government.
Ironically, the party leader is a close
relative of Bjarni Benediktsson, the
leader of the Independence Party, and
at a glance it's tough to see how the
two parties differ, EU stance aside. But
even though our halted EU application
process is the least of anyone's wor-
ries right now, the members of Viðre-
isn still argue that they have more in
common with the parties to the left
of them (the Pirates, Bright Future,
Social Democrats), than the two par-
ties in power. If they continue to rise
in polls, they might be in position to
put their money where their mouths
are come November.
The Rest
The rest of the parties are a mixed bag
of degenerate racists, scattered power-
to-the-people proponents still trying
to ride the post-financial crisis wave
and one, admittedly, pretty awesome
old-school communist who we should
probably all vote for even though none
of us will.
Oh god, I hope I'm not forgetting
anyone...
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Words
STÍGUR
HELGASON
Illustration
LÓA HLÍN
HJÁLMTÝS-
DÓTTIR
HUMOR
Indecision
2016: Iceland
Edition
The pessimist's guide
to Icelandic politics
The Politics Issue 12The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 15 — 2016