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Post by Deleted on Oct 20, 2017 23:47:57 GMT
Gallup poll from 13-19/10 based on 59.2% answers from a 2,870 sample (from their panel). So a one week poll at last. Tie between the Big 2 like MMR, but the 23% level looks more credible than the very low Big 2 numbers from MMR. Both the People's Party and Viðreisn are safely above the threshold in this one and BF totally gone by now (it looks impossible for them to get back). The left needs one of them to drop below 5% to be certain to get a majority. Higher youth turnout than last time could still change the result and get it close(r) to the university polls. Last time the turnout was historically low at 79.2 with merely 65.7% of the 20-24 year olds voting (68.7% among those aged 18-19) vs. 90.2% among 65-69 (the age group with the highest turnout). So the Gallup and MMR samples are based on that, but there has been lots of focus on turnout and especially youth turnout, plus the anti-IP mood on social media might indicate more interest. There is also a big election night concert at the Valsheimilið stadium in Reykjavík with "top names" where you can get in for free if you show a selfie of yourself in the voting booth. Seats: LG 15 SDA 9 Pirates 7 Total 31 (for 47.3%) IP 15 PP 5 Centre 6 People's Party 3 Viðreisn 3
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Post by Devil Wincarnate on Oct 21, 2017 9:09:50 GMT
Valsheimilið is a very nice place to watch a match, either indoor or outdoor. Apropos of nothing.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 21, 2017 9:10:22 GMT
University of Iceland poll conducted 16-19/10 has LG losing 3 point and the Pirates 1. The combined left is at 47%, but still retains a narrow majority with 32 seats due to the People's Party being below the threshold. The LG vote still has a huge gender gap with 31% support among women and 16% among men (down from 40/20 in their best). They now only get their average 23% among young voters (18-29), but has 29% among those aged 30-44. So they might no longer benefit from higher youth turnout (but SDA and the Pirates would). LG has seemingly lost young voters and soft support among (mainly female) former IP voters. This should make their remaining support more resilient. Few other details mentioned in the article: SDA and IP have an equal gender distribution (IP weren't in the first polls, so they have regained women voters), while the Pirates, Centre and PP are male dominated. The Pirates are over represented in Reykjavík, PP and Centre (naturally) in rural areas. The other parties have little difference. Notable that SDA is no longer underrepresented in rural areas, which it used to be. A northerner as chairman and more classically Social Democratic message style has seemingly changed that (if the poll is reliable, the SDA vote outside the capital area will be interesting). Its based on 2,396 answers from a 3,900 sample, so a significantly bigger sample than their previous ones. They asked three questions "If you were to vote today, what party or list would you vote for?", and to those not answering that "What kind of list do you think its most likely you would vote for?", but this time dropped the second follow up question, used in their previous surveys, "Do you think it's more likely that you would choose the Independence Party or any other party or list?". On average this third question (which is a bit controversial among Icelandic pollsters) counterintuitively lowers the support for IP by two points (because it triggers some apolitical voters, who do not like IP, to mention another party). So the 25% to IP might have been 23 if it was still included.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 21, 2017 12:45:47 GMT
With the latest big sample polls the picture is getting clearer (though a lot can happen in the last week) and the combined leftist vote seems relatively stable and on a level where the tattered centre-right would need to unite to block them. There are basically two likely governments:
1) LG, SDA and the Pirates get a narrow majority (this will likely require the People's Party to drop below the threshold, but that also seems fair likely)-
2) LG, SDA and PP form a minority government with a confidence and supply agreement with the Pirates. These four parties at least agrees on a progressive tax reform, welfare investments and the direct democracy/peoples initiative part of the constitutional issue and might be able to compromise on the rest of the constitutional issues. SDA would have to drop all thoughts of an EU-referendum and the introducing the Euro (the latter is more popular than EU membership itself in Iceland), but LG would be happy with that. With SDG out of the way the Pirates could probably accept this. SIJ is fairly left leaning on economics, and PP is a party that always want to be in government whenever possible to protect the interests of their rural core constituency.
There still doesn't seem to be any credible path to a centre-right government. There is a small ocean of bad blood between the two wings of the Progress Party, the IP leadership consider SDG utterly unreliable and incompetent, and Viðreisn would be foolish to enter another protectionist government after their "near death experience".
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Post by Deleted on Oct 22, 2017 23:38:02 GMT
RÚV had a programm Saturday where they dug deeper into Bjarni Benediktsson's economy.
They have focused on ties from the company Falson & Co, which he founded via Mossack Fonseca in Panama and used for real estate investments in Dubai, but apparently also used for real estate investments in Florida (where his dad lives) and to found a company on the Seychelles.
He was also chairman of N1, which on the eve of the crash tried to get Glitnir to convert its loans to the company into shares. It has previously been revealed that 20% of the funds lend by Glitnir went to Bjarni Benediktsson's family, so they clearly had influence with the bank.
Far more people will see this than an article in Stundin (which is funded by a crowd fund with ties to the Pirates and mostly has leftist readers), so this might have an effect. Its a reminder of certain things most voters aren't too pleased about.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 23, 2017 8:37:29 GMT
Half the Althing was replaced last year and according to the latest University of Iceland poll it will be a third this time due to BF not making it, and Viðresn, PP and IP losing seats + three retirements (BF, PP, Pirates).
Many key figures won't be reelected. Three ministers will lose their seats: Óttar Proppé and Björt Ólafsdóttir from BF and Viðresn founder Benedikt Jóhannesson. PP get no seats in the two Reykjavík constituencies, which means deputy chairman Lilja Dögg Alfreðsdóttir is out (a very big loss for them). IP lose the Speaker Unnur Brá Konráðsdóttir (too low on the list in South, which wasn't updated this time due to internal politics), and parliamentary group chairman Birgir Ármannsson from Reykjavík North, Viðreisn lose deputy chairman Jona Sólveig Elínardóttir and the new chairman of the Constitutional and Supervisory Committee Jón Steindór Valdimarsson.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 23, 2017 9:14:23 GMT
Meteorologists predict that election day is likely to be the first real winter day with plenty of snow in the northern and northwestern part of the country, and cold but bright weather in the south and east. Near freezing temperatures in the whole country, but probably frost-free in the South and East. Some uncertainty about this ofc, but it could influence turnout in the north and delay the final results (as all ballots are counted at one counting centre in the constituency, in some cases more than 400 km away from the polling stations farthest away). The main reason the election was placed in late October and not early November as first intended was to avoid the risk (and cost) of heavy snowfall.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 23, 2017 13:07:17 GMT
248 502 voters (124 669 women and 123 833 men, 13 461 of living abroad.
NW 21,516 and 8 seats NE 29,618 and 10 seats S 36,154 and 10 seats
SW 69,498 and 13 seats Reykjavík North 46,109 and 11 seats Reykjavík South 45,607 and 11 seats
With a proportionel distribution it should have been:
NW 5.45 (= 5) NE 7.51 (would be rounded down to 7 due to lack of available seats) S 9.17 (= 9) SW 17.62 (= 18) Reykjavík North 11.69 (= 12) Reykjavík South 11.56 (= 12)
So 42/21 (2:1) between the capital area and the province vs. 35/28 (5:4) IRL. Even if Northern Iceland was combined - so the rounding didn't harm them - they would only get 13 seats vs. 18 today.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 23, 2017 14:18:40 GMT
248 502 voters (124 669 women and 123 833 men, 13 461 of living abroad. NW 21,516 and 8 seats NE 29,618 and 10 seats S 36,154 and 10 seats SW 69,498 and 13 seats Reykjavík North 46,109 and 11 seats Reykjavík South 45,607 and 11 seats With a proportionel distribution it should have been: NW 5.45 (= 5) NE 7.51 (would be rounded down to 7 due to lack of available seats) S 9.17 (= 9) SW 17.62 (= 18) Reykjavík North 11.69 (= 12) Reykjavík South 11.56 (= 12) So 42/21 (2:1) between the capital area and the province vs. 35/28 (5:4) IRL. Even if Northern Iceland was combined - so the rounding didn't harm them - they would only get 13 seats vs. 18 today. Is this done on purpose or has it occurred due to a lack of boundary changes? Both. Iceland has historically had crazy high rural over representation (esp. before 1959), and it has then gradually declined. PP and to a lesser degree IP have a vested interest in keeping rural/smalltown over representation. But its also due to the short time since the last election, which means the current distribution is still (barely) legal. The seat distribution needs to be adjusted if the number of votes per seat in the "cheapest" constituency is less than half in the most "costly". But the number of seats in a constituency can never drop below six. It started out in 1999 as 9 seats per constituency + 9 levelling seats (2 ascribed to each of the capital area constituencies and 1 to each of the others), so it has already been adjusted several times. Its 2689.5 votes per seat in the NW and 5346 (= 2 x 2673) in the SW, so its right at the limit.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 23, 2017 18:14:26 GMT
Very good MMR poll for the centre-right conducted 20-23/10. Though I still find the MMR results odd. Adds up to 99.8, so a rounding error somewhere. The two factions of the (old) Progress Party on 20.9% combined.
Traditional centre-right: 37.0
IP 22.9 PP 8.6 Viðreisn 5.5
Populists: 17.0
Centre 12.3 People's Party 4.7
Centre-left: 42.7
LG 19.9 SDA 13.5 Pirates 9.3
Minor parties: 3.1
BF 1.8 Others 1.3
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Post by Deleted on Oct 23, 2017 18:29:47 GMT
Very good MMR poll for the centre-right conducted 20-23/10. Though I still find the MMR results odd. Adds up to 99.8, so a rounding error somewhere. The two factions of the (old) Progress Party on 20.9% combined. Basically I think there are too many old people in their panel. I suspect that they over-corrected based on the low youth turnout in the last two elections, but we shall see. The "old" parties" (Centre, PP and the People's Party) are doing very well in the MMR polls.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 23, 2017 18:53:13 GMT
Income to the parties last year in ISK. Article based on numbers from the National Audit Office (most figures look suspiciously round..).
IP 239 mio. PP 140 mio. SDA 100 mio. LG 70 mio. Pirates 50 mio. BF 43 mio. Viðreisn 30 mio. People's Party 4 mio.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 23, 2017 23:18:26 GMT
Looking at an election mini-debate with lP/LG/SDA. Bjarni Benediktsson now openly invites LG. "The circumstances are right for a reconciliation government across political borders and that is why a government between IP and LG is quite possible." Regarding financing of welfare improvements LG are going for an extra income tax on incomes above 25 mio. ($237,000) a year, higher catching fees for the fishing companies, and higher dividend from energy company Landsvirkjun and the nationalised banks. Katrín says they don't want to raise fees on tourism services, but charge a 100 kroná arrival fee on all tourists (that equals about a dollar, so only 2 mio. dollars a year - so peanuts). SDA now wants to build 6,000 social housing apartments in Reykjavík to be run by a non-profit association. Up from 4,000 when they started their campaign. ... Prof. Eiríkur Bergmann Einarsson says he expects an LG-SDA-Pirate minority government with a confidence and supply deal with either PP or Viðreisn, that LG clearly prefer PP, while SDA and the Pirates prefer Viðreisn, and a majority government would be a choice between the same two combinations. Others think LG-SDA-PP with a confidence and supply deal with the Pirates is more likely (based on distrust of whether the Pirates actually can manage to function in government). I think PP would be prepared to go quite far to get into a left/centre government. It would prove to rural voters that they can deliver results and work with both sides while SDG can't + they could keep deputy leader Lilja Dögg Alfreðsdóttir on the political stage if she is in the cabinet (Katrín would probably be prepared to give her Foreign Affairs again, its not like they have anyone obvious for that post). Its both free trade, an EU membership referendum and the currency matter that makes the difference. SDA want to switch to the Euro to avoid having Icelandic exports undermined by the strong kroná and secure stable interest rates, the leading Pirates unofficially want the same. LG want to keep the kroná. Icelanders are split 50/50 on the Euro, whereas EU-membership is 60/40 against even in the most favorable polls. The Pirates probably also expect Viðreisn to be more flexible on constitutional reform. Of course that is only relevant if Viðreisn a) gets in b) has enough seats to secure a majority for the left. I think the the former is reasonably certain, I am less sure about the latter. Things would clearly be easier for LG if they didn't make it.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 24, 2017 12:59:13 GMT
A breakdown of the latest University of Iceland poll on constituencies. The usual caveats about subsamples apply (and I have omitted the smallest parties), but the pattern looks very typical. IPSW 31.4 NW 28.7 S 26.6 Reykjavík S. 24.3 NE 18.0 Reykjavík N. 17.3 IP does best in suburbia followed by the two most rural constituencies (with the most rural being the best) and "inner suburb" Reykjavík S. The rural NE is a PP stronghold and Akureyri provides nearly half of the votes - and its not an IP friendly town. The combination of these two effects makes the NE a lousy constituency for IP, with only central Reykjavík being worse. IP does badly in places that are actual urban (people that live in apartments rarely vote IP unless they are retired..). LGReykjavík N. 29.6 NE 28.9 Reykjavík S. 27.9 NW 23.6 S 17.9 SW 16.6 LG does best in urban areas. Its marginally stronger in central Reykjavík dominated North than in the more inner suburbia heavy South. Akureyri is a stronghold and combined with the People's Alliance legacy vote in the fishing ports of Northern Iceland it makes NE their second best constituency while the ultra rural NW is above average as well. Northerners are generally protectionist and anti-EU regardless of whether they are left or right and that benefits LG. It does much worse in South that lacks the fishing ports and gets killed in suburbia (which has the fastest population growth, so problematic for them). It could have been interesting to have constituency subsamples from when LG was on 28-30% (22%+ in this one), my guess is the support from a quarter of 2016 IP voters they had back then were disproportionally from suburbia. SDAReykjavík N. 17.9 Reykjavík S. 17.1 SW 15.0 NE 14.9 S 14.8 NW 12.4 SDA used to be an urban middle class party, but its clear that having three provincial MPs and a northerner as chairman has changed their image and they now have a remarkably even geographical distribution, even if they still do a bit better in Reykjavík and worse in the NW (not many europhile voters in the Westfiords..). Combined LG + SDA vote with LG share in parenthesisReykjavík N. 47.9 (62.3) Reykjavík S. 45.0 (62.0) NE 43.8 (66.0) NW 36.0 (65.6) S 32.7 (54.7) SW 31.6 (52.5) The left does best in Reykjavík and Akureyri, better in rural/smalltown north than rural/smalltown south and worst in suburbia. LG dominates the north with nearly 2/3, and gets over 60% in Reykjavík, while SDA does better in the south (where the leftist vote is more middle class) and gets nearly half the leftist vote in suburbia. ViðreisnReykjavík N. 8.2 SW 7.4 Reykjavík S. 6.9 S 2.3 NE 2.2 NW 1.2 Viðreisn is a capital area party with very little support in the province where neither EU membership, auctioning off fishing quotas or abolishing protection of agiculture are popular positions. It notably does a bit better in central Reykjavík, where IP is unpopular and Viðreisn is "respectable right wing" for some, than in the inner and outer suburbs and satellite towns. The large SW constituency forms the backbone of their suppport and they have a shot at a constituency seat even if they drop below the threshold (1/13 = 7.7), they would also be very close to a constituency seat in Reykjavík N. on these numbers. PPS 13.3 NE 12.3 NW 9.3 SW 6.0 Reykjavík S. 3.6 Reykjavík N. 3.5 The PP support shows the classic picture with high support in rural areas, less in suburbia/satelite towns and very little in Reykjavík proper. They are strongest on SIJs home turf in South, which is the only constituency where they are bigger than Centre. CentreNE 16.7 NW 12.4 S 11.0 SW 10.7 Reykjavík N. 6.2 Reykjavík S. 5.2 SDG & Co. are doing best in his own constituency in the NE, followed by the other rural constiuencies and suburbia and worst in Reykjavík. Their distribution is less rural than the classic PP pattern and they are doing well in suburbia where they run Gunnar Bragi Sveinsson as #1 candidate. Combined support for the two faction of the (old) Progress Party with Centre share in parenthesisNE 29.0 (57.6) S 24.3 (45.3) NW 21.7 (57.1) SW 16.7 (64.1) Reykjavík N. 9.7 (63.9) Reykjavík S. 8.8 (59.0) NE is the PP heartland where the coop movement started and it is still the parties best constituency. Their weakest rural constituency is the NW where Centre has fielded a local businessman to fight coop backed ex-lefty economist turned sheep farmer Ásmundur Einar Daðason, while incumbent Gunnar Bragi Sveinsson is running in SW. The People's Party is doing very well up there and seems to hoover up som frustrated ex-PP voters. SDG got the support of nearly all of Reykjavík PP, and Centre is clearly ahead of continuity PP in the capital area, and also well ahead in the two northern constituencies. The South stays solid for local boy SIJ and continuity PP. PiratesReykjavík S. 11.0 Reykjavík N. 10.3 SW 8.1 S 7.6 NW 6.8 NE 2.6 The Pirates basically have a reverse PP pattern, doing best in Reykjavík, followed by suburbia and worst in the province. Westmanna Islands born Smári McCarthy secures a good result in the South, while uncharismatic and colourless (but very capable) Einar Brynjólfsson lose out in Akureyri (and thereby the NE) where LG probably dominates too much.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 24, 2017 17:57:06 GMT
The National Electoral Commission has requested Vakan not to let free access to their big concert rely on showing a selfie from the voting booth since it is illegal to take photos of your ballot within the booth (apparently even if it hasn't been filled out).
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Post by Deleted on Oct 25, 2017 19:20:12 GMT
Campaign video from SDA with a text written by the author Hallgrímur Helgason and featuring Dr. Gunni (Gunnar Lárus Hjálmarsson) and Biggi veira (Birgir Þórarinsson) from GusGus. Both big names in Iceland. All three of them running for SDA. The message is to get rid of Bjarni Benediktsson's old mob with tax haven companies, dirty deals and corruption. Verum Samfó means "Be an Alliance-man" (Samfó is slang for Samfylkingarmaður).
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Post by Deleted on Oct 26, 2017 11:30:06 GMT
New Fréttablaðið poll has IP at 24.1 and LG all the way down to 19.2. They had LG on 27% only a week ago, but their sample is twice as big this time so it may not be directly comparable. Still a high gender gap in the LG vote (25% among women, 14% among men - down from 40/20 in their best poll, so their drop among female voters is roughly 25% bigger than among men). Viðreisn surge and are now bigger than PP, which will give rise to an LG/SDA fight over which centrist party to work with. The three leftist parties are on 30 seats combined and can form a majority with either of the two centrist parties. A centre-right majority would require all four parties to work together (which must be considered impossible under current circumstances). IP is at the 23-25% level from which they surged to 29% last time, but this time SDG has part of the Conservative vote and the People's Party will keep a bit of it as well, so I doubt its possible for them. The People's Party is very close to the threshold in this one. Things could get very complicated if they make it (not that they aren't complex now... ). IP 24.1 (17) PP 6.2 (4) Viðreisn 7.5 (5) BF 1.9 LG 19.2 (14) SDA 14.3 (10) Pirates 9.4 (6) Centre 9.6 (7) People's Party 4.4 Other 3.4 Its notable that 3.4% would vote for "others", and since voters in the NW can't do that, and voters in four other constituencies only have the tankies in the People's Front of Iceland as "other" option this must be considered a "don't know" and/or "might not vote" option. LG tanking is almost certainly mostly due to the EU question. IP have touted the "a leftist government will take Iceland into the EU" message relentlessly, and it seems to be working. SDA have been selfish and played along with this theme, even if they know a leftist government requires LG to attract eurosceptic voters that would never vote SDA (or Pirate). The Pirates are ofc bound by their "let the people decide" rhetoric and unable to downplay it for tactical reasons. LG have a split electorate and participatory democracy ideals and can't afford to say they will not accept a membership talks referendum. Restraint from SDA would have been the sensible option (like saying the referendum should be placed along with the next Althing election). The LG position is "we do not want to join the EU and a referendum is not a priority for us, but we will not block it", which doesn't seem to play well. I thought the EU theme had finally died in Icelandic politics post-Brexit (or been postponed to public opinion showed an actual chance of a "yes" to membership), given that the UK is their biggest trading partner in the (current) EU. But the problems with the very strong kroná, which harms Icelandic exports, and a volatile exchange rate has brought the Euro and thus EU-membership back on the agenda + EU-membership is identity politics for parts of the urban middle class (and thus also SDA). The left wasted endless amount of political capital on the EU issue 2009-13, and a new left/centre government doing the same would be foolish. If SDA insists on the referendum it would also rule out working with PP and a confidence and supply deal (or even coalition) with Viðreisn would mean more liberal/less leftist economic policies than would be possible with PP.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 26, 2017 13:16:59 GMT
LG on 30.1% in the two Reykjavík constituencies, so the decline has happened in rural areas (= eurosceptics).
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Post by Deleted on Oct 26, 2017 16:36:25 GMT
Nearly 28,000 have already voted, 24,800 of them in Reykjavík, where a polling station has been set up in the Smáralind shopping center. In the elections last year 31,558 voted early, but that number will almost certainly be higher this time.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 26, 2017 22:02:57 GMT
This girl is number seven on the People's Party list in the SW. She was approached by some of their activists back in October, who said they "needed young bright people" to run, and to be polite she said she would think about it. So they put her on the list. It would have been annulled if she had withdrawn, and she didn't want to harm the chances of other candidates, so she agreed to keep her name on it. Youngest candidate for the de facto pensioners party.
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