Icelandic parliamentary election, 2017

[Deleted]

Well, combined left + one centrist party don't have a majority, so neither have IP/PP/Centre. So its going to be really difficult. Hopefully things move a bit.

IP 17
Centre 7
PP 6

= 30

LG 11
SDA 8
Pirates 5

= 24

Vidreisn 5

Peoples Party 4

[Deleted]

I tend to think it will be a minority coalition this time. Unless the numbers move quite a bit.

[Deleted]

Well, the seat count can move back and forth a bit (and the early vote may be a bit more leftist), but assuming the result more or less holds up, some thoughts:

1) I think the polling average was more or less accurate, but a lot of voters were in doubt and the last debate was a joker. Inga Sæland's tearful appeal worked and SDG seemed sincere and got sympathy votes for being the one all the "clever people" ganged up on. Last time it was the IP wave that continued past the last polls, this time it was low income eurosceptic voters voting with their heart.

2) Shameless populism, pathos and emotional outbursts works in Iceland (Icelanders often claim its the Irish side of their ancestry, no comments on that ). Tell people you will give "the people" a third of a bank, and they listen. Tell them no child should be miserable, and they listen. Present detailed plans on how to develop the welfare "infrastructure" or a responsible fiscal system and few care. As usual in the modern West the (cultural) right does populism better than the left.

3) SDA really needs to stop talking about the EU. The left can not win without attracting eurosceptic voters and Iceland isn't going to join the EU for the next 12-15 yeas, so no reason to squander what could have been a 30+ for the left result by allowing the "a leftist government will take us into the EU" line to play so well.

SDA probably needed to cut down LG, because if LG had finished 2-3 times as big as them their relationship would have been too skewed, but they were already gaining on their beloved artists and Logi Már's folksiness, so they didn't need to bring up Europe, and I doubt it got them many extra votes.

4) Pro-EU parties (incl. Pirates) had 24 seats, now they have 17. Only 11 out of 46 eurosceptic seats are held by the left.

5) LG were too naive in presenting such a detailed tax plan. Icelanders want Scandinavian style welfare, but they do not want to pay for it. They should have gone 100% populist and kept it vague. Icelandic political culture isn't technocratic and "Germanic", and its much better to be attacked for being too vague than provide fodder for scaremongering on taxes.

6) Attack ads have entered Icelandic politics for real, and while the left (SDA) made the more creative ones, IP supporters made the most vicious and effective. LG didn't even enter this territory, and are generally all "nice and serious", but I think they need to learn how to go low.

7) The government lost 10-11 seats, the Liberals lost 7 of them and one of two Liberal parties is out. What a failure.

[Toylyyev]

I suspect it may not be a coincidence that much of the above reads like marching orders for the 2018 Icelandic parliamentary elections.



Meanwhile the Pirates are one up at the expense of IP.

Edit: The spirits of the night now have the Progressives up two, Centre down one, and IP down one more, which yields V, S, B and P adding up to 32.

[Deleted]

Regarding pollsters: I thought MMR had probably oversampled old people (to correct for past mistakes) given their outlier status and strong PP/Centre and People's Party support, but they clearly had a fairly representative sample.

[Deleted]

With more than 95% in its:

IP 16 (-5)
PP 8 (nc)

Peoples 4 (new)
Centre 7 (new)

Vidreisn 4 (-3)
BF 0 (-4)

LG 11 (+1)
SDA 7 (+4)
Pirates 6 (-4)

Most leftist option PP, LG, SDA, Pirates = 32

Most right wing option IP, PP, Centre, Vidreisn = 35

PP are the kingmakers and can go both left and right, but left will be more stable. SIJ will likely want to become PM.

[Deleted]

The next levelling seat will go to SDA (if needed), so it should be certain that PP get the kingmaker role.

[Deleted]

Its about 20% of the vote in the NW, that is still out. The other 5 constituencies are fully counted. 

[Deleted]

No changes in the final result:

[Deleted]

The negotiations will be decided by three main factors:

1) How badly does SIJ want to become PM?

2) How deep are the internal rifts in the (old) PP?

3) How pragmatic is the Pirate Party?

My guess is the answers to the two first questions are: He wants it badly, and very deep. Keeping all their seats and getting a bigger group than SDG was a major triumph for SIJ. He still has 90%+ of the old membership, and PP is at heart a rural interests party that always wants to be in power to deliver to their core supporters. If SIJ is PM and SDG an irrelevant opposition politician SDGs rural support could wither away fast, provided that the government is reasonably succesful. PP/LG/SDA would then be the only solution as there is no way IP would let SIJ lead the government, and a centre-right government would include SDG. The three parties negotiated prior to the election, but gave up forming a government due to lack of a confidence & support partner. The Pirates could deliver those votes now. Three months ago the thought of the Pirate Party propping up a PP led government would seem absurd, but given the situation I think they might be willing to do it. After Birgitta J.s exit they are led by reasonably pragmatic people, who probably could get the members to back it. The prize would be a new constitution. PP accepts the draft of the Constitutional Council in principle incl. a more fair distribution of seats. Their main objection is that they do not want one national constituency, but more small constituencies (so they could dominate the rural ones). So fewer rural seats, but more of them to PP. If the Pirates can accept that a compromise should be possible.

So the third unknown factor is: How pragmatic is the Pirate Party, my guess would be reasonably pragmatic (but the reaction of Birgitta J. is a joker).

(of course I could be all wrong and both SDG and SIJ will step down in order to unite the party under Lilja Dögg Alfreðsdóttir and then force IP to recognize her as PM due to having only one seat less than IP and a more central position, but somehow I am not seeing SDG agreeing to that...  )

[Deleted]

Some trivia:

- At 9.2% the Icelandic Pirate party is now smaller than the Czech.

- Centre got 0.16 percentage points more votes than PP (but one seat less).

- The number of women MPs in the 63 seat chamber dropped from 30 to 27 (Centre, PP and the People's Party account for the skewed gender balance. The People's Party got 75% men elected, apart from Inga Sæland all their top candidates were male.

- 25.3% is the second worst IP result ever, only their 23.7% in the post-crash 2009 election was worse. 

EDIT: It ended up 39 men and 24 women after the last levelling seats were distributed.

[Deleted]

Looking at tendencies the result is:

Conservatives -5
Liberals -7

Populists +11
Leftists +1

So while the left "lost" due to massively underperforming the polls and expectations raised they technically "won", while more ideologically coherent centre-right parties lost big and nationalist, protectionist, eurosceptic and anti-immigration populist parties with a mix of nominally left and right positions won (though that mix is very different in the two parties). 

[Deleted]

81.21% turnout. Two points up from 79.19% last time, and first election with more than 200,000 votes ( 201,777). 

[Deleted]

Bjarni Ben and SDG both want the president to give them the official mandate to form a government (SDG because he has "won the biggest victory"), but SDG says he will negotiate broadly anyway if he doesn't get it. Logi Már and Katrín says they expect the "opposition parties" to form a majority government with a one seat majority (= the one I talked about), and that informal talks are ongoing.

[Deleted]

Óttarr Proppé says he has no regrets about leaving the government because it was morally right to do and that it has set an example for society that covering up sexual abuse isn't acceptable. He says the party is strong and will contest the local elections next year (they had a very good municipal election in 2014 and lots of councillors).

BF left the Althing with the worst result for a sitting party since the Social Democratic Alliance broke down (after its founder Vilmundur Gylfason committed suicide in the Althing) and ended up getting 0.2% in 1987. No party has ever reentered the Althing after losing its seats.

...

SDG claims PP deputy chairman Lilja Dögg Alfreðsdóttir is "a centre party woman within the Progress Party", she was his "invention" as politician and they have been close, but I doubt she will defect now.

[Deleted]

The party leaders will meet the president at Bessastaðir tomorrow 10-18 (for an hour each) in order of vote count, and I assume he will announce who gets the mandate afterwards or Tuesday, but he can decide to retain it and let the informal talks continue a bit longer. If he does its a sign the LG/SDA/PP/Pirate talks are serious, and he wants to avoid snubbing Bjarni Ben by giving Sigurður Ingi or Katrín the official mandate.

10:00 Bjarni Benediktsson
11:00 Katrín Jakobsdóttir
12:00 Sigurður Ingi Jóhannsson
13:00 Logi Már Einarsson
14:00 Sigmund Davíð Gunnlaugsson
15:00 Þórhildur Sunna Ævarsdóttir (Pirate chief negotiator)
16:00 Inga Sæland
17:00 Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir

[Deleted]

Icelandic media compare Centre to the Citizens Party, a right wing populist party founded a few weeks before the 1987 election, by a tax dodger ousted by his own party and getting 10.9%. The parallels are striking (apart from SDG never being a professional footballer ), right down to the vote share. Wonder if they will try to bribe SDG with an ambassadorship?

"The Citizens' Party (Icelandic: Borgaraflokkurinn) was a right-wing populist[1] political party in Iceland which was formed in a split from the Independence Party in 1987. It disintegrated slowly until it ceased to exist in 1994.

Albert Guðmundsson was a minister for the Independence Party but after being implicated in a large financial lawsuit concerning the defunct shipping company Hafskip was deemed by his fellow party members to be unsuitable to continue holding such office.

In protest he resigned from the party to form the Citizens' Party and with him went a significant number of other members. 1987 was an election year and The Citizen's Party managed a remarkable feat, having 7 members elected to the Alþingi.

In 1989 Albert resigned as chairman and was appointed as Iceland's ambassador to France. Two of the Members of Parliament then formed their own party (and later merged back into the Independence Party)."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens%27_Party_(Iceland)

[greenhert]

My analysis of this election: greensocialistalan.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/on-icelandic-election-of-2017-left-foot.html

Also, now that this election is over could a moderator please lock the poll part of this thread?

[Deleted]

Oct 29, 2017 17:00:36 GMT greenhert said:

My analysis of this election: greensocialistalan.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/on-icelandic-election-of-2017-left-foot.html

Also, now that this election is over could a moderator please lock the poll part of this thread?

Its a marginal election and I think more people would have voted if it had stayed open a few days longer, but since it apparently bothers you I have locked it. 

[Deleted]

Oct 23, 2017 8:37:29 GMT @odo said:

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.

The ones in bold ended up getting reelected after all.

Apart from BF Benedikt Jóhannesson, Jona Sólveig Elínardóttir and Unnur Brá Konráðsdóttir are out. Benedikt Jóhannesson is among the big loss of this election, from party chairman and Minister of Finance to ex-MP. The Althing will also need a new Speaker, interesting to see if LG founder Steingrimur J. Sigfussion wants the job.