Iceland review - 2016, Page 63

ICELAND REVIEW 61
the creditors of the fallen banks. The
government has also recently announced
the easing of capital controls imposed at
the end of 2008. Government finances
are sound, sovereign debt has been paid
down, economic growth is impressive
at 4.2 percent and the Central Bank has
ample foreign currency reserves. A cynic
might suggest that credit should go not
to the government but to a species of fish
and two volcanic eruptions. Mackerel,
which migrated into Icelandic waters a
few years ago, has provided ISK 144 bil-
lion (USD 1.2 billion) of export revenue
since 2006, and tourism has become the
single largest earner of foreign currency
with the eruptions in Eyjafjallajökull in
2010 and Grímsvötn in 2011 helping put
Iceland squarely on the map. It’s diffi-
cult for the government to claim credit
for either of those two factors, without
which we would probably still be strug-
gling to cope with the collapse of the
banks in 2008.
Sigmundur Davíð’s Progressive Party is
facing heavy losses in the polls, down from
almost 25 percent in the 2013 election to
8 percent, and only decided two months
before the early election on October
29, to call an assembly to determine its
leadership. The Pirate Party has been the
undisputed leader of the polls in the last
couple of years with support as high as 40
percent in April—even though it received
only 5.1 percent of votes in 2013. It’s now
in disarray after trying to come up with
a viable list of candidates in all constitu-
encies, and probably always knew it was
unrealistic to expect the results of recent
polls to hold in an election.
The Independence Party, part of the
ruling coalition and historically the larg-
est political party, is still struggling to
regain the position it held before 2008.
Its leader, Finance Minister Bjarni Ben-
ediktsson, is competent but uninspir-
ing. The center-left Social Democratic
Alliance, which should be able to appeal
to a broad section of the electorate, is
chronically stuck with support below ten
percent, after leading the government
coalition 2009-2013. The lack of support
was blamed on an ineffectual leader, but a
new leader, Oddný Harðardóttir, elected
earlier in the year, has not been able to
revive the party’s fortunes. The Left-
Green Movement, whose charismatic
leader Katrín Jakobsdóttir was touted as
a possible president, won 21 percent of
the vote in 2009, but saw support fall as
low as 8 percent earlier this parliamen-
tary term. It has recently been winning
over voters, scoring between 16 and 20
percent in spring 2016.
The wildcard is the Reform Party, a
new center-right party (led by Benedikt
Jóhannesson, Iceland Review publisher),
currently rating at 9 percent. The party
could emerge from the election with
support from dissatisfied voters from
the Independence Party, the Social
Democrats and the Progressive Party.
A NEW POLITICS
Whatever the results of the election
and whoever will be in charge come
November, this new-found calm we
have experienced over the last couple of
months should give us plenty of food for
thought. The fact that one individual can
poison the atmosphere in an otherwise
content democracy is completely unac-
ceptable. We should steer clear of agi-
tators, megalomaniacs and demagogues.
We should reject people who say they
have discovered the final solution to our
problems and who claim that they alone
can save us from threats that only they
can see. We should support people who
can disagree about ways and means with-
out actively fermenting discord. u
OPINION
Halldór Lárusson is an entrepreneur.
He has degrees in economics, philosophy
and history of science.
From Alþingi, Iceland’s parliament.