The Icelandic Canadian - 01.12.1959, Blaðsíða 50

48
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Winter 1959
fishermen are rough, tough and care-
less they are kind and understanding.
It is a story that has the ingredients
of a good boys’ yarn. It has action,
struggles, humour, intrique and narrow-
escapes from death. It would be of
interest to young readers and is recom-
mended for school libraries.
—Mattie Halldorson
Haraldur Bessason
The latest parliamentary elections in
Iceland took place under a new Elec-
tion Act passed at the 1959 summer
session of the Aiding. This new law,
which greatly altered the rules by
which members were formerly elected
to the Legislature and brought about a
constitutional change, was intended to
rectify the somewhat unjust proportion
between rural and urban represent-
ation.
Space does not permit a detailed
explanation of the change, but suffice
it to say that under the old Election
Act 52 members of the Icelandic Ai-
ding represented 28 constituencies but
under the new Act 60 members repre-
sent only eight constituencies. This
alteration, in effect, has increased the
voting power of city residents and
brought about a closer equilibrium be-
tween rural and urban constituencies.
To illustrate this it might be mention-
ed that Reykjavik with its population
of approximately 70,000 (more than
one third of the total population of
Iceland) formerly was represented in
Aljring by only eight members but now
it has twelve.
The figures below show how the
political parties are now represented
Prof. Haraldur Bessason
in Aiding. The parenthesized figures
indicate the representation constitutional change: before the
The Conservative Party 24 (201
The Liberal Progressives 17 (19)
The Social Democrats 10 ( 71
The Socialists 9 ( 6)
The Minority Social-Democratic
Government, formed last winter, has
resigned and a new coalition govern-
ment, formed by the Conservatives and
the Social-Democrats, has come to
power under the leadership of Mr. <M-
afur Thors. The new government con-
sists of the following Cabinet Ministers:
1. Mr. (Mafur Thors, Prime Minister
(Conservative)