Reykjavík Grapevine - 24.08.2018, Page 14

14 The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 15— 2018
When Líf Magneudóttir, a Left Green
city councilperson, stuck her tongue
out during a city board meeting, she
probably thought it was a harmless
joke. An icebreaker in an electrified
situation, overshadowed by serious
matters connected
to a previous court
order against a high
ranking official in
city Hall that had
become somewhat of
an explosive political
scandal.
And perhaps
Líf’s joke would have
worked out if she
hadn’t directed it at
conservative stalwart
Marta Guðjónsdót-
tir, a member of the
Independence Party.
Marta abruptly halted
the meeting, booking
a complaint where
she demanded that
members of the city council try to at
least be respectful to each other. What’s
more, she demanded an official apology
from Líf.
Immediately, hell broke loose in the
media. Voters on social media harsly
asked electors to behave like grown ups,
or just learn to take a joke. It was clear
that tables had turned. The joke was on
Líf. But nobody was really laughing.
The beginning, the very
beginning!
The city council has been relatively
peaceful in the past few years compared
to the circus of national politics. But
when the new coalition was elected
this spring, everything changed rather
quickly. The ruling coalition includes
the Left Greens with Líf Magnedót-
tir, the Pirate Party, the Reform Party,
and of course, the Social Democratic
Alliance, with Dagur B. Eggertsson as
mayor of Reykjavík, a position he has
held for the past four years.
The official opposition was formed
in a joint collaboration between the
People's Party, Independence Party,
Centre Party, and the notable Socialist
Party. Before the elections, the Centre
Party and the Independence Party
criticised the ruling coalition harshly,
saying that they were spending too
much money on City Hall to the detri-
ment of other areas, such as kinder-
gartens. This rhetoric would have
unexpected repercussions for them.
Animals in a circus
After the elections, newspapers in
Iceland covered a story surrounding the
severance pay of a staff member of the
city council, where he was given 250,000
ISK in compensation for an unlawful
reprimand, issued by the Chief of Staff
of the city board. Additionally, the City
had fronted the bill for the trial, which
amounted to over one million kroner.
This trial’s condemnation of the
Chief of Staff was unusually harsh.
The documents stated that the Chief of
Staff’s conduct was condescending and
that she treated her staff member like
an “animal in a circus that should stand
and sit as she pleased”.
In this atmosphere, a explosive meet-
ing was held in ity council in the end
of June. There, Marta Guðjónsdóttir of
the Independence Party accused the
ruling coalition of hiding information
surrounding their processes of elect-
ing candidates to committees within
the City system. The ruling coalition
dismissed the criticism. The Chief of
Staff of the city council—not the city
board, as was previously mentioned—
did not take the oppositions attack
lightly and criticised Marta harshly in
the media for the accusation and subse-
quently, accused Marta and the opposi-
tion coalition as a whole of breaking
rules of ethics by accusing them of
being part of this alleged conspiracy.
This sounds complicated, but
doesn’t it always with bureaucrats? To
be honest, no one exactly understood
what was going on, but the point was
that they were trying to start a fight.
The gloves were off. The war of the
bureaucrats had begun.
Was someone bullied?
The Centre Party and members of the
Independence Party then officially
complained at the city board meeting
in the end of July that they had serious
concerns about the behavior described
in the verdict of the district court. They
then claimed that it was thus neces-
sary to discuss the future of the Chief
of Staff within City Hall. The People's
Party and the Socialist Party subse-
quently lodged a complaint that there
were indications that there was culture
of bullying allowed in the workplace.
Vigdís Hauksdóttir of the Centre Party
repeatedly highlighted the debate in
public discussion. To summarise, they
decided to raise both a battle of paper-
work and public perception.
The Chief Administrative Officer of
City Hall disputed these claims. The
court’s verdict was not about bully-
ing, he emphasised, but was about
administrative actions and the legality
of them. Though this was correct, the
person that the case involved—a.k.a.
the guy that the Chief of Staff had repri-
manded—said repeatedly in his state-
ments for the court that the Chief Of
Staff had bullied him.
In an unprecedented move, the Chief
of Staff responded to these allegations
in an open letter on the City's webpage,
demanding that the presidium look into
these matters and establish an investi-
gation committee to explore whether or
not she had been a bully. She also said
that the misstatement of the electors
were serious and hurtful.
The tongue incident
But how does this all connect to the
tongue? Well, the next meeting of the
City Board was held on August 16th.
Only a few days before that, the minor-
ity party had refused to be present at
a planning and transportation board
meeting, claiming that the meeting
lacked legal formalities. The majority
party, of course, said this was not true,
adding fuel to the fire.
Then, at that August 16th city board
meeting, tongue-gate occured and all
went to hell. Líf—the perpetrator—
claimed that Marta Guðjónsdóttir was
staring her down in the beginning of
the meeting, and it became unbeara-
ble. She had decided to stick her tongue
out then in a prankster kind of way to
lighten the mood.
Marta refused to laugh at the joke
and threatened to officially report
the incident if Líf would not apolo-
gise formerly. Líf did apologise to her
in private, but Marta said that was
not enough. If this was not dramatic
enough, Vigdís Hauksdóttir—the
Centre Party member who had accused
City Hall of having a bullying problem—
went to the media to tell them that this
tongue incident perfectly illustrated
said bullying problem, which was alleg-
edly thriving.
What next?
So here we are, in the middle of the
fallout of the tongue-gate and the war
of the bureaucrats. It’s safe to say that
the morale in the City Hall has never
been so low. It’s unclear what the next
steps are in this dramatic dilemma, but
there are indications that this will be a
cold political winter where even a small
joke can be turned into a political hand
grenade.
The War Of The
Bureaucrats
Some jokes are all about timing and the right audience. One
Left Green city council member learned that the hard way.
“Líf said in an
interview after
the tongue inci-
dent, that Marta
Guðjónsdóttir
stared her down
in the begin-
ning of the city
board meeting,
and it became
unbearable.”
A rare spotting of a stoned bureaucrat
Keep that tongue away from me!
Words:
Valur Grettisson
Main photo:
Art Bicnick