Reykjavík Grapevine - 09.12.2016, Blaðsíða 6

Inner Workings
Figures
Don't
Lie
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 18 — 2016
6
When Iceland’s parliamentary elec-
tions were held at the end of October,
pretty much every prediction of the
results turned out to be completely
wrong. At time of writing, Iceland
still has no ruling coalition, and all at-
tempts to form one have fallen apart.
In fact, there are two separate ruling
coalition talks going on at the same
time. By the time this goes to print—
hell, maybe even by the time I finish
writing this sentence—the situation
will be entirely different again.
Why this has happened involves an
increased number of parliamentary
parties, and a key decision made by
President Guðni Th. Jóhannesson that
exposes the flaws in our system.
It used to be so simple. Headlines
the world over assured everyone that
the Pirate Party was going to sweep
the elections; who they invited to the
ruling coalition was just a minor de-
tail. As we know, things didn’t turn
out that way. By a strange confluence
of the results, which saw seven differ-
ent parties making their way into Par-
liament, no two-party configuration
can hold a majority. Iceland has gener-
ally been allergic to coalitions of more
than two parties. This created the first
problem.
The second problem is that form-
ing coalitions always means develop-
ing a joint platform. You’d be forgiven
for thinking this might be easy, what
with most of these parties identify-
ing with one side or the other of the
centrist spectrum. Surely centrists are
flexible enough to work with just about
anyone, right? Well, yes and no. That
certainly used to be the case in Par-
liament, but it hasn’t been since the
financial collapse of 2008. During that
time, the country was led by the right-
wing Independence Party, with the
partnership of the centre-left Social
Democrats. And of course, let’s not for-
get the reason we had early elections
in the first place: the Panama Papers
scandal this spring, which effectively
torpedoed an already increasingly un-
popular Progressive Party.
As such, any parties invited to work
with the Independence Party, who won
the most votes this fall, have felt pres-
sure to stick to their guns and compro-
mise nothing. The right-wing Progres-
sives, disgraced by the Panama Papers,
aren’t even considered a possibility as
a coalition makeweight. For better or
worse, this has created a near-intrac-
table situation. And that’s where the
President comes in.
After Guðni gave the mandate to
start coalition talks to the chairs of two
different parties—first the Indepen-
dence Party, and then the Left Greens—
both failed to form a coalition. He then
announced that he would not be giving
the mandate to anyone else. Instead, he
recommended that all party chairs talk
to one another and iron out their differ-
ences. This clever move created a power
vacuum of sorts. It’s why we now have
two separate coalition talks going on at
the same time. Everyone was given the
mandate, in a sense, to make Iceland’s
next government.
Voices within the Pirate Party have
been floating the idea of a minority
government. Which is hilarious, con-
sidering how unstable these govern-
ments are, and how quickly parties
would likely turn on each other. The
idea of a þjóðstjórn, wherein there is
neither a ruling coalition nor an op-
position, has been largely dismissed
as solely an emergency measure that
would lead to democratic gridlock.
Would it, though? It is arguably far
more democratic to have all of Ice-
land’s voters equally represented and
taking part in the process of shaping
society (typically, bills from the rul-
ing coalition roll on through to become
laws, whilst bills from the opposition
die in committee). Legislation would
take more time to pass. But since when
is the aim of democracy efficiency? If
you want efficiency, you go with au-
thoritarianism. If you want the people
to have direct control of their desti-
nies, you go with democracy—however
slow, messy and headache-inducing it
can be. That’s the trade-off.
In some ways, Iceland could serve
as a political model for the rest of the
world. We have all the tools at our dis-
posal to create a directly democratic
system of societal organisation. Yet
we cling to obsolete and clearly deeply
flawed methodologies for governance.
If this election teaches us anything, it
should be that trying to fit new ideas
into an old system is like trying to fit
a nitrous tank to a Ford Model T: you
can probably find a way to do it, but the
result is likely going to be disastrous.
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Words
PAUL
FONTAINE
Illustration
CHAS
ROBINSON/
SCOOBY
DON'T
OPINION
Iceland's
Political
Shitstorm
2016
A Reprise
Iceland has the 2nd
highest number of
published titles per
capita in Europe
2nd
The average number of
books an Icelander buys
as christmas gifts.
2.1
The average number of
books every Icelander
reads each year.
10
70% of all books
are published in the
last three months of
the year, or around
Christmastime
70
%
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