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ICELAND’S COALITION GOVERNMENT is turning a deaf ear to angry protesters calling for its resignation, a day after the prime minister stepped down over the Panama Papers scandal.
Hundreds of demonstrators massed on the square outside parliament in Reykjavik, urging the entire centre-right government to quit.
Inside, the two coalition partners met behind closed doors to discuss their path forward.
The coalition parties “have lost all their legitimacy, but I am sceptical they will leave of their own initiative. Time is on their side and it’s crucial for them to stay in power,” Gyda Margret Petursdottir, a 42-year-old teacher who came out to protest, said.
Valthor Asgrimsson (36) agreed, saying: “We need a fresh start for Iceland. Preferably with an election.”
But as they spoke, Agriculture Minister Sigurdur Ingi Johannsson, the deputy head of the centre-right Progressive Party led by outgoing Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, announced that his party and the right-wing Independence Party had agreed to stay on running the country’s affairs.
“We have reached a conclusion” to maintain the coalition in power since 2013, he told reporters after a meeting with Gunnlaugsson.
Two other ministers named in leak
The name of the new prime minister is to be announced later today, as well as the makeup of the reshuffled cabinet.
Two other cabinet ministers named in the Panama Papers, Finance Minister Bjarni Benediktsson and Interior Minister Olof Nordal, could be replaced.
The prime minister, who did not appear in public today, stepped down from his post yesterday – becoming the first major political casualty to emerge from the massive leak of 11.5 million documents detailing hidden offshore accounts held by world leaders and celebrities.
The financial records, revealed by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), showed that Gunnlaugsson and his wife owned an offshore company in the British Virgin Islands and had placed millions of dollars of her inheritance there.
The prime minister sold his 50% share of the company to his wife for a symbolic sum of $1 at the end of 2009, but he had neglected to declare the stake as required when he was elected to parliament six months earlier.
Gunnlaugsson said he regretted not having done so, but insisted he and his wife had followed Icelandic law and paid all their taxes in Iceland.
It has not been proven the couple stood to gain financially from the offshore holding, and the ICIJ noted only that Gunnlaugsson had “violated Iceland’s ethics rules”.
But the issue is particularly sensitive in Iceland, a country marked by the excesses of the 2000s when senior bankers used shell companies in tax havens to conceal their dealings in risky financial products and which ultimately led to the 2008 collapse of the nation’s three main banks.
‘They’re the real pirates’
The left-wing opposition, which presented a motion of no-confidence to parliament on Monday, wants early elections to be held ahead of the scheduled April 2017 vote.
The vote of no-confidence could be held tomorrow after a meeting of parties represented in parliament scheduled for 10.30am.
Riding high on Icelanders’ anger over the affair, the nascent Pirate Party has seen its support soar in the wake of the scandal.
A libertarian movement founded in 2012 and campaigning for more transparency in politics, internet freedoms and copyright reform, the Pirate Party garnered 43% of voter support in a Gallup poll conducted on Monday and Tuesday and published by daily newspaper Frettabladid and Channel 2 television.
“We are the Pirate Party, but these people are the real pirates, taking it all for themselves and hiding it on exotic islands,” Karl Hedinn, a 21-year-old member of the party’s youth wing, told AFP.
In recent weeks, the party had been polling between 25 and 35%.
“I think they have good chances, especially now. And why not try something new? … I wouldn’t mind trying something new,” a graphic designer who gave her name only as Sindri said.
The Gallup poll indicated the Independence Party would come in second place with 21.6%, and the opposition Left Green Movement in third with 11.2%.
Gunnlaugsson’s Progressive Party garnered just 7.9%, behind the opposition Social Democrats’ 10.2%.
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Good for you Iceland, feck them out. Good luck.
Ireland, take note.
If only !
Were we not told a while back Iceland government were great telling the banks to go jump….that was the extreme left view….looks like they are all the same
In all fairness Alan, if something like this were to happen anywhere it would only have been in Iceland. The simple reason being that Iceland has a population of under 330,000 people – around a tenth of the entire voting population were able to turn out to protest. It’s a much smaller pond – everyone pretty much knows everyone. It’s a lot harder to hide behind layers of bureaucracy and spin doctors.
Compare with Ireland’s population of over 6 million.
Now compare the UK’s population of over 64 million.
And finally contrast with the USA’s population of over 322 million.
All are modern Western democracies, and yet you can see how much longer the distance stretches between the man at the top and the man on the street with each instance. It seems perversely easier to decrease your accountabilty with the more responsibility you have.
The UK prime minister’s woes have come a little closer to home last evening by the news that the family trust fund, Blairmore, relocated from sunny Panama to Ireland in 2010, the year Dave took over the hot seat at Westminister.
All in the interests of Anglo Irish relations, don’t you understand.
That’s the way. Take no nonsense from politicians. …these people are the real pirates, taking it all for themselves and hiding it on exotic islands,”
It’s a country with the same population as Donegal and Tipperary-combined, though.
In reality the people outside protesting are the neighbours, relatives and friends of Icelandic government ministers.
Hard to ignore the will of the People when national politics is THAT local.
Except …… we really have no government to resign at the mo’ …… maybe after their little holiday perhaps !?!
Seems we are not loud enough here. To passive. Except the unexceptable…
Iceland….ireland – just one letter separates the two countries but we are a world apart in the meaning of our respective democracy.
Very true. There is only one different letter in the spellings of Ireland and Iceland.
There’s a sea change happening in European politics.
Parties of the right are coming more and more under the microscope of public scrutiny. The citizens of Europe have lost faith in them. The old mantras are noting more than worn out cliches at this point. Nobody’s buying the spin anymore.
And to be honest it’s been coming for a while now.
I’m sure many of these corporate fronts masquerading as political parties inwardly thought the con job of austerity economics had brow beaten the people into submission, the left had been rendered impotent, the storm had been weathered and a bright future of fiscal trickery awaited them.. A mindset perfectly illustrated by the arrogance of Fine Gael here prior to the general election.
Far from the case.
The people are not stupid. They know who the real culprits are. And they now know how they operate in the murky world of politics.
The Panama Papers have have exposed the corrupt under belly of Europe’s right wing political class.
And it’s not a pretty sight.
The parties of absolute integrity, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael , should form sub parties in Iceland and show the ex path to integrity.
Why can’t we be more like Iceland
Ah now lads, them Icelanders are losing the run of themselves. What now, they think parliaments should be accountable to the people? LOL!
Haha. Mehole will probably be telling us theres a lot of “facists” in Iceland. I support these “facists” fully, hope they awaken in ireland soon, and show Mehole what true democracy is!
Their liberal left wing government were dumped for their present right wing capatalist government they have seen both in action and want the left wingers back unlike in Eire the people insist on voting in and maintaining the parties that bend us over every day for their greasy monies and now we have a rotating edna with mehole.
reading the comments so far their must be no one in Ireland commenting because based on the comments they would all have set up mass protests here about the state of the country sad really we don’t have these mighty go getters
have your say