Reykjavík Grapevine - 18.05.2018, Qupperneq 12

12 The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 08 — 2018
Most of our readers are familiar with
the wacky hijinks of Parliament and all
its scandals and early elections. Mean-
while, Reykjavík City Hall has mostly
flown under the radar. This isn’t to say
City Council is comprised of a bunch of
nerds who think garbage pick-up sched-
uling and the number of traffic lights
are fascinating conversational topics.
Denizens of City Hall can also get up to
some pretty shady and amusing stuff.
Here are some of the most recent high-
lights of the high times.
1. The Reign Of Davíð Oddsson.
Davíð Oddsson is a political legend in
Iceland. Today remembered as The Boss
of the Independence Party who used to
be Prime Minister, Central Bank Chair,
and is now co-editor of Morgunblaðið,
Davíð’s beginnings include a stint in
Reykjavík city politics, which saw him
fight tooth and nail to become Mayor
in 1982. One of the first things he did
was reduce the number of seats in City
Council from 21 to 15 (it went back up to
23 only recently) and was well-known
for eating the first hamburger at the
first McDonald’s in Iceland (which left
our shores in the wake of the financial
crash). But he and the Independence
Party held a grip over Iceland’s capital
that was so strong, the other parties on
the council had no choice but to consoli-
date into a single party, the Reykjavík
List, in order to unseat the Independ-
ence Party (Davíð left for national poli-
tics in 1991).

2. Palace Intrigue And The Death Of
The Liberals. After 12 years of rela-
tive peace and stability in Reykjavík,
many people came to the conclusion
that life was boringly normal in the city,
and that it was time to shake things
up. And shake things up they would.
Reykjavík city politics from 2007 to 2008
was a veritable House of Cards, both in
reference to the television series and
its inherent instability. There’s a lot to
unpack here, but these are the broad
strokes:
In 2007, the Independence Party won
seven seats—not enough for a clean
majority in the 15-seat City Council
their own Davíð Oddsson helped create.
So the natural question was, who to
partner with? At first, presumed-mayor
Vilhjálmur Vilhjálmsson started talk-
ing with Liberal Party leader Ólafur F.
Magnússon, but broke those off over a
dispute over where the domestic airport
should be. Ólafur was heartbroken, and
Vilhjálmur sidled on over to Progres-
sive Party leader Björn Ingi Hrafnsson
to form a new coalition. All went well
until it came to light that Vilhjálmur
and Björn had made a back-room deal
with investors to privatise and sell
off Reykjavík Energy. The coalition
exploded, and Ólafur would enter talks
with other members of the opposition
and Björn, and a new coalition was
born, with Social Democrat Dagur B.
Eggertsson becoming Mayor. All good,
right? Well, no, as Ólafur took a leave
of absence, only to return and find
that City Council had pushed through
a measure about Laugavegur 4-6 that
he strongly opposed. And so it was back
to forming a coalition of the Liberals
and the Independence Party again, with
Ólafur made mayor. That, too, fell apart
shortly thereafter, as Ólafur’s deputy,
Margrét Sverrisdóttir, strongly opposed
the coalition.
And that’s how Reykjavík had three
coalition majorities in just 20 months.
3. The Best Party And Jón Gnarr.
Voters had long grown weary of city
politics. The back-room deals, the
back-stabbing, the broken promises
and nepotism—all par for the course
in Icelandic politics, but even by our
own standards, things had gotten a bit
too swampy in City Hall. It was time
for a clean sweep. Enter: the Best Party,
Words:
Paul Fontaine
Photo:
Baldur
Kristjánsson
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Reykjavík’s
Greatest Hits:
The Shenanigans
Of City Halls Past
City politics can be its own brand of circus