Next Saturday, Iceland elects their next President. Presidential elections have a tendency of being uncontested in Iceland, but this time there are a number of candidates since incumbent President Olafur doesn't run again (he's been around 20 years...). The election is first past the post, to the best of my knowledge.
Candidates are almost always independents in these races, at least they don't show partisan affiliation. There seems to be 4 main candidates :
- Gudni Johannesson, a senior history teacher at the University of Iceland, whose specialty, among others, is... the Icelandic presidency.
He seems somewhat progressive, he wants to put through the constitutional reform buried in 2013 by the arrival of the IP+PP government. He currently polls around 50-55 %.
- David Oddsson, Prime Minister for IP in 1991-2004, and perhaps even more symptomatically Governor of Iceland's Central Bank from 2005 to 2009... when he was hired as Morgunbladid editor in chief, one of Iceland's main newspapers... I don't think I need to describe him more, he polls around 16-20 %.
- Andri Snaer Magnason, a prominent author published in 30 countries, seems somewhat environmentalist. Polls 10-15 %.
- Halla Tomasdottir, a businesswoman, founder of Audur Capital, seemingly the only financial firm not having gone bankrupt in 2009, and oriented on empowering women in the financial world. She was among the organisers of the "National Assembly" in 2009, when 1,200 citizens were randomly chosen and 300 other activists gathered to discuss the after-crisis. She seems on the rise with 7-12 %.
There are 5 other minor candidates, including a 3-time candidate peace activist, another author, a humanitarian nurse, an ethnologist-healer, and a protest candidate without any kind of clear ideology (Sturla Jonsson, leader of the... Sturla Jonsson party).
There is no great suspense, but the kind of candidates running makes Iceland an FF country, on and on. Hopefully Oddsson ends 3rd or 4th.