Iceland parliamentary election

[Zanas]

Has the Green-Left participation in the government (Steingrimur and Katrin if I recall well ?) been any good, bad, neutral, audible, inaudible ? I guess they are also back to what they cuold count on before the "Revolution" back in 2009.

[Zanas]

Okay, I'm officially un-loving political Iceland as of now... 15% for a left-wing coalition who, if not perfect, basically saved their asses without selling them to banks, that's very lacking gratitude... And this sudden and massive Progressive surge doesn't stick with the cliché of calm and level-headed Nordics...

However, looking at the other polls, this particular one could well be an outlier.

[Zanas]

Ok you cleared it for me. I was not saying they didn't repay anything to the banks by the way, just that they didn't sell the whole country to them as they are doing in Greece. Iceland's been better off than Greece, and that's probably thanks to this government among other factors.

But I figure that really this election is a return to a more traditional repartition of the electorate, about two thirds right wing and one third left-wing.

[Zanas]

(the strange idea that you can keep welfare with much lower taxes just by cutting bureaucracy is a pet idea among Scandinavian libertarians capitalist ass-licking liberals, moderates and socialists worldwide.)

Fixed.

[Zanas]

If I can read between the lines well, can I infer from your article on corruption comparing Iceland to African states and from the rest of our discussions that nothing's gonna change on that with PP in power ? I feel like they are the plain old agrarian party, and therefore quite connected with the provincial establishments. Is that true, or exactly the opposite ?






...and that, ladiesy and gentlemen, was my 1000th post. It's not a very good one actually, but still...

[Zanas]

Wow I didn't Katrin was so popular. Why is she more popular that Left-Green vote share would indicate ?

Oh, and since she seems to be an expert on Icelandic author Arnaldur, you can all read his novel "Arctic Chill", which describes the status of immigration in Iceland quite well. At least it gave me a pretty good indication.

[Zanas]

Looking back at the polls preceding the 2009 election, it looks like while SDA and IP had been polled quite on the spot, Left-Green had been quite overpolled and Progressive underpolled.

Do you think there is a rule to it, or was it circumstancial ?

Looking at the current trend, it seems that Bright Future voters are coming back to Left-Green by two or three points. Still, it doesn't seem like the last polls will show Bright Future below the 5% threshold, so they should retain their share. However, with 7.2% last time, the Citizen's Movement had only won the last seat in both Reykjavik constituencies, and the second-to-last one in the Southwest, plus one leveling seat on the national level. This time, the Southwest has one more proportional seat, so it could be won at around 6% nationally, then depending on local strength of course.

There are several stakes here : who will be first between IP and PP ? who will be 3rd between SDA and LG ? who will be 5th between BF and Pirates ? Could there be a governing PP-SDA (i.e : 32 seats) ?

My final prediction, unless more polls are published :

IP 26.2
PP 24
SDA 14
LG 10.8
BF 8
Pirate 6.6

DW 3
Dawn 2.7
RG 1.4
Others 3.3

[Zanas]

So IP, who got more votes, will accept to sit in a government topped by PP, who got less, while they hate each other ? This is gonna be fun watching...

On the other hand, it's a disaster for absolutely nothing at all will be done by this particular government to change anything in Icelandic society, political landscape, or anything.