Faroe Islands Parliamentary Election - September 1, 2015

[politicus]

The Speaker Jógvan á Lakjuni (PP) has had talks with all party leader and the opposition will try to form a government.

The main problem is that Republic/Progress/Home Rule want a roadmap towards independence and SD still being unionists at heart are unwilling to go along with that even if they want a separate Faroese Constitution and more autonomy. It will be hard to land a compromise between Republic/Progress and SD on this, but it will likely be done.

The mutual understanding about where a compromise should be about the economy, taxes, quotas etc. is high after all their previous contacts in the last couple of years, so it is the constitutional future that is the hard part. Despite PP being in the previous government the balance in this one would be a lot more separatist because Republic and Progress are more principled separatists and less willing too compromise on this issue.

[politicus]

Well Republic suggested a referendum for 2016.

Is not Home RUle more moderate on the separatist issue?

Home Rule are gradualists wanting to take home area after area until there is almost nothing left of the union and then cut the last ties. SD are willing to go down that path for a while, but they disagree that the end goal should a priori be defined as a fully independent state. They want to keep their options open and are skeptical about whether all the costs of establishing a micro state are really worth it. Their traditional fear is that it will be impossible to secure an adequate welfare state in such a small country dependent on something as inherently unstable as fishing resources.

SD have always viewed PP as rich egoists and Republic as naive dreamers on this.

[politicus]

haha that map is the rainbow flag !

Yeah, and since most Faroese journalists are SocLibs that is probably not a coincidence.

[politicus]

Well they can always try an union with Iceland

Historically Iceland has been the big brother and ideal for Faroese nationalists and many of the prominent families on the separatist side married into Icelandic families.

The Faroese understand Icelandic quite well, but Icelanders are unable to understand Faroese, so there is not even a community of language on the mainland Scandinavian level. Faroese is further from the original Old Norse than Icelandic and apparently it is easier to "go back" to the common ground than understand the neologisms and Danish loan words in Faroese despite the many strange invented Icelandic words for modern things (they mostly consist of elements a Faroese can guess the meaning of).

A union would need to use English or Danish (Icelanders still learn it, but are quite bad at it) as common language and both would be totally unacceptable to the nationalists. Language is at the heart of Faroese (and Icelandic) nationalism. The difference in size is also still too big and the Faroes would be swamped by the self confident and dominant Icelanders.
(there is a saying in Iceland that if Icelands population had been just a quarter of the Norwegian Norway would have become an Icelandic colony, and I tend to believe them)

They have the same type of natural resource based economy, so a common currency might work, but  Icelandic economy is not quite stable enough for this to be attractive.

The Faroese had their krone pegged to the British pound 1940-49, but that was WW2 and aftermath and with Britain their only trade partner of importance, not so today. Still, it would be more acceptable than the Euro. Only UP are pro-EU. Separatists hate it (like Icelandic nationalists). It was then been pegged to the Danish krone at 1:1 and today it is just a version of the Danish krone and issued by our national bank. Faroese notes are legal tender in Denmark (even if shops often refuse to take them), but officially you have to change the other way (but most shops take Danish notes).

But ironically they might inherited the Danish krone if we ever join the Euro Greenlandic politicians generally agree Greenland would have negotiate with the EU about using the Euro in this case leaving the Danish krone as a Faroese currency by default.

[politicus]

what about oil, is there any oil around?

They are searching (and dreaming..), but so far, no.

[politicus]

KLJ resigns as chairman of the Union Party.

[politicus]

All party leaders except Jørgen Niclasen from PP pointed to Aksel Johannessen as the leader of the government formation talks ("negotiation leader"). Niclasen wanted Høgni Hoydal from Republic in charge, no doubt hoping to tempt Republic into forming an "independence coalition" with PP, Progress and HR.

Johannessen now has 10 working days to form a government - starting today. He had talks with Republic and Progress today, and will meet with the Home Rule leaders tomorrow.

[politicus]

who is the leader now of the UP?

No one, their executive committee will meet during the week and decide who it is going to be - or send it to a party congress, but they prefer to avoid that in the Faroes. No one has announced their candidature yet, but Bardur Nielsen will want the job. Perhaps their former chairman Edmund Joensen (70) (an ex-PM, Speaker and Folketing MP), who topped the poll, will have to take another turn to prevent infighting. Nielsen would almost certainly not run against him.

There was one article on Kringvarp saying KLJ had second thoughts because so many people had urged him to stay on, but I doubt he will change his mind. Once you have announced your resignation there is no going back - his authority would never be the same.

It was the party associations on two of the smaller islands, Vágar and Sandoy, that demanded his resignation, so if he has support on the two central islands he can fight on. But it would be foolish to try to.

EDIT: Their executive committee is meeting on Monday. KLJ has resigned, but is apparently also a candidate as "new" chairman. Messy.

[politicus]

Thats good fun. I guess they will agree on something.

KLJ....that was expected. He was in a very bad position now (as if he was not before).


I am learning a lot on Faroese politics these days, this i being a good chat

(og man kan også sige på dansk, det er en hyggeligt samtale)

Thx, I have enjoyed it too. Is that Google Translate or do you know some Danish?

[politicus]

SD-Republic and Progress have continued with the government formation talks alone in what the Faroese media call "serious negotiations" - so no Home Rule.

[politicus]

Does it mean they will have a coalition pretty soon?

Probably

[politicus]

Unfortunately, I cannot read Faroese. Thats my main problem to follow the developments there.

Yeah, there is no Google Translate to give you a rough idea like Icelandic

Faroese is fairly close to New Norwegian (nynorsk), which I can read, so I normally understand the general idea of what is being said, but not always the details.

[politicus]

Any latest news on the Faroese side or should we wait until Monday?

They are still negotiating and may as well announce during the weekend (they may be more religious than most up there, but they are not keeping the Lord's Day holy during government negotiations - at least not if Centre isn't involved).

[politicus]

Will it have to be a official coalition, or can there simply be a minority government? That should surely give the SD-Republic people some leeway to achieve their goals...

They have positive parliamentarism, so they need a majority behind it. Technically that would not require all parties voting for the government to join it, but there are zero tradition for minority governments in the Faroes. It is simply not part of their political culture (same goes for Iceland and Greenland btw).

[politicus]

Björk - Declare Independence. Thought it should be somewhere in this thread

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLCFRo1GlEI

[politicus]

There was also an MP of SD which was in Rep before right?

Yes, the SD Folketing MP Sjúrður Skaale was in Republic until 2011. He left for ideological reasons since he was less of a radical "here and now" separatist than the party and disagreed with their constitutional proposal.

Skaale has an MA in polsci, but is a former radiohost and comedian, actor and singer (still performs once in a while) so he has his own fanbase and could move without risk.

[politicus]

I heard a radio program with five Faroese youth politicians (no Republic or Home Rule) and there was some interesting bits:

Regarding gay marriage:

The Progress rep said they are the only party where you can not run unless you pledge to support civil gay marriage and that all the big parties have some SoCons, so apparently Republic have some at the local level in the settlements.

The UP youth org is pro-gay marriage, but their guy said the high personal vote number for for PM Edmund Joensen (a SoCon from a settlement) in the Folketing election earlier this year had made it even more difficult to move the party away from official "vote you conscience" line towards being pro. He otherwise considered the party "a Social Liberal centrist party with some Conservatives".

SD youth org (called Socialist Youth btw) is pro (of course) and she said there are "very few" SoCons in the party.

The PP guy emphasized that the party is officially against it because it is a Danish law (which the Faroes are currently exempt from) and they refuse to discuss it before marriage legislation is "taken home" - this makes it possible for PP to frame their opposition as a separatism matter rather than an ethical one and demand party discipline on votes.


Regarding socioeconomic stuff:

On economics the PP rep said the were not a parallel to LA in Denmark, but more socially responsible. Apparently they think the sale of fishing quotas can finance welfare without having high taxes.

The SD girl restated the old claim that SD is the most left wing party and said that they are an unreformed, classical SD unaffected by Third Way-ism and neoliberalism. I personally think that with all the UP/SD switches that happens the two parties must be fairly close, but there is no denying Faroese SD is much more focused on redistribution of wealth than continental SDs.
Since Republic is always willing to sell out leftist goals for nationalist that may very well de facto put SD to the left of Republic on the socioeconomic scale.

At least it is funny that both SD and Republic always claim to be the most left wing party - it creates a special dynamic between them.


EU, Russia and the union:

On Russia and sanctions they all declined that the Faroes act immorally by keeping up their export and said that the EU sanctions were themselves unethical since they punished ordinary Russians. The PP rep went as far saying that Faroese sanctions would mean assist in "starving the Russians".

They also stated that the Faroes had themselves tried to be boycotted by the EU and that economic sanctions was an old fashioned and immoral way to conduct foreign policy, which should be a thing of the past. The only exception was the Progress guy who thought the Faroes should "take international responsibility". Progress seems generally to be internationalist and are also very pro taking refugees.

They all admitted it was also about economic self interest, but said the EU boycott had forced the Faroese to seek alternative markets and it was not possible to withdraw from Russian market with not guarantee it could be replaced + that Faroese sanctions would be of no importance to Russia, but ruin the Faroese economy.

They all confirmed that the Danish sanctions against the Faroes had caused a change in opinion about separatism and except the UP guy they all expected the union to be dissolved at some point, but the SD girl took the usual caveat that her party was founded to stop the eternal quarreling about independence and focus on the "needs of the people", and this issue had to be kept in the background and the Centre said it was "rather irrelevant". So they were pretty classic on  their views on this.

 I also think that the absurd situation where DK had to boycott a part of our own state meant the end for the union with the Faroes.

The Progress rep said they are  committed to national freedom as one of their three main goals (the others being personal freedom and economic freedom), but that they are willing to take it slower than Republic and that the economic foundation for it is important.

[politicus]

One way of describing the Faroese SD would be to compare it to Danish SD in the 50s or 60s. Fairly moderate and pragmatic, but with a clear sigt of the end goal being a more fair and equal society, firmly anchored in trade unions and with a rhetoric still a bit influenced by Socialism (but not Marxism) + an easy relationship with the nation and national culture given that they operate in a de facto mono-ethnic society.

All this makes them a bit exotic in todays Europe.

[politicus]

Home Rule is back in the negotiations.

[politicus]

They should go and rest in the weekend...I do not know...take some sunbath

In September in the Faroes?

[politicus]

In that period of two months there is what it is called "government in functions".

From what it seems that Faroe Islands, at the moment, does not have a government. Is this correct?

Yes.

If the situation drags on for an extended periode the Speaker can ask the previous government to step back as a caretaker administration. But that is very unlikely.

[politicus]

Yes but they have a margin of 1-2 weeks usually.

What if some relevant decision for some sudden event happens in between? They call the former govrnment back.

But maybe KLJ is in the Canary Islands having the sunbath

He is still in the Faroes and will stay there to they have a new government. Besides it very unlikely that something that can not wait a week will happen in the Faroes.

Did you read my long post about the youth pols above? I thought you would have had some comments or questions.

[politicus]

Code:

I think that the Youth of a party is different from the Party itself in many occasions.

On whether SD and Rep are the most leftist, I have seen SFers supporting Republic, so probably they associate SD with the Danish Socialdemocrats.

As for independence, it does not look like PP, Rep and Progress have the majority. I am not sure what HR exactly stands for, but you probably have more info.

As for the gay marriage, I am not sure what is the point of Progress stating that they are the only "true" and 100% pro-gay marriage. I do not think Republic will have a problem and maybe some SoCon SD MP but thats pretty much it. UP will have ethical vote so that it would pass. To me the question about that is how (refrendum or not) and when. Dont you think?

Youth parties are of course different, but they also talked about what their mother parties thought and how they vary and what direction they are moving in, which was the interesting part.

Danish parties cooperate with Faroese and Greenlandic parties based on tradition, not current ideology, so that is a useless guideline in determining what positions the parties actually have (like IA in Greenland being quite free market despite being a nominally Socialist party). Faroese SDs of course work with Danish SDs. Republic ally with no Danish party when elected. Danish left wingers consider IA and Republic the proper "anti colonial" partners, but both parties put nationalism (and therefore a healthy economy/fiscal responsibility) above leftist goals, which often makes them wiling to cut budgets quite hard and their countries respective SDs more left wing in practice.

The Progress guy was describing the (complex) situation in the parties when asked - not saying how SD and Republic will vote - that is your focus.

Not sure how you are so 100% certain gay marriage will pass when there isn't a majority based on the likely government parties. The SoLib UP votes are only relevant if there is a vote at all. Nobody in the opposition will raise the issue, so if the government parties are blocked from raising it there will be no vote. I think - and hope - they will do it this time, but it is not a done deal. Odds are maybe 75-80% or something

I have already covered HR and independence - cut ties bit by bit until there is nothing left - then formalize it by declaring independence.

I guess you are just more interested in "here and now" - the long term trends and developments are more interesting for me as a Dane.

[politicus]

On HR - yes indeed what you say is their big theory of how to approach independence. But, yes, I was asking for the now in the current negotiations with the other three parties.

On gay marriage, even if there is one or two SoCons, any of the other parties can say that gay marriage is a condiction sine qua non (similar to CP but on the other way round).

HR is going for a government that takes the maximum under the current 2005 autonomy agreement + a Faroese Constitution.

SD agrees theres should be a Constitution and wants to take some things like control with the air space and foreign policy, but not fx the police and the courts.

The only likely candidate for making it a sine qua non is Progress. Republic is usually pragmatic with all non-independence related goals. Republic, SD, HR could work without gay marriage, even if some MPs would be massively disappointed, but they would have to wait - I do not see a party split over gay marriage from SoLibs. They know it is tricky.
There is no doubt lots of pressure on Aksel J. for securing gay marriage, but if a deal with Progress slips away, people know he has to use the two HR - and that there is a risk they would block it (even if they may not - or just demand a referendum). 

[politicus]

Btw, the point raised by the PP Youth is interesting.

Yes, but it is the whole party that use it as an argument.

PP often uses separatism to disguise other motives. Like when they claim the Faroes should not take refugees because foreign policy is under union control.