Icelandic presidential election 2016

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Guðna Th. Jó­hann­es­son­ says that he wouldn't be surprised if ÓRG withdraws now. If he does the switch of establishment candidate would be provoked by the increased media interest in Dorrit Moussaieff's tax affairs, but the relationship between the two old power players is complicated and I doubt this is arranged. They will split the establishment vote for sure. Already people congratulating Guðna Th. with the victory, though a bit premature for that.

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“Hungover residents woke at Garðabæjar. 10:11 an ancient "Noooooooo!!!!!!!!" coming from Bessastöðir.”

“A wonderful opportunity to reject the two most power-hungry men in Icelandic political history with one stroke of a pen.”

“Guys, I am stuck in some twisted nightmare where Davíð Oddsson is presidential candidate. Please wake me up.”

Mayor ✔
Chairman XD ✔
Prime Minister ✔
Foreign ✔
National Bank Governor ✔
Editor Moggi ✔
President ? #

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ÓRG is getting cold feet.. and it sounds like he is dropping out, but he has refused to give a clear answer yet.

- it "remains to be seen whether he will fulfill his candidacy for president" and "he must think about how he would react to a situation that is completely changed since he announced his decision". He is not ready to conclude anything yet.

- "completely changed circumstances now than when he announced his decision to run for re-election on April 18." 

- "at the time feared that the president would be elected with 18-19% of the votes." He has always seen himself as a servant to the interests of the nation and would resign from office would be a situation where the people could elect the President with at least comparable support to the one he (= 41%) and Vigdis Finnbogadóttir enjoyed (= around a third of the vote).

- Guðni and Davið  = those men who were on the one hand one of the greatest experts in the presidency of the country and the living Icelander who beside the President himself had served the longest in the State Council. "This can hardly be conceived anything but dramatic changes in a short time".

- "the nation should now have the option to choose individuals who have knowledge and experience or the office. When he was "forced" to change his decision to resign as president this had not been clear. He must take it into account.

(his 18-19% argument is obviously not valid as Andri Snær Magnason was likely to win with around a third of the vote with the field present in mid-April, but not an acceptable candidate for the establishment)

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Doddsson's entry means ÓRG runs a big risk of losing and becoming the first incumbent Icelandic president to be defeated in an election would damage his legacy. So natural if he is looking for a way out. 

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New MMR poll conducted 6-9 May shows ORGs support collapsing after the exposure of his wifes dubious tax affairs.
mmr.is/frettir/birtar-nieurstoeeur/543

Guðni Th. Jóhannesson 59.2%
Olafur Ragnar Grimsson 25.3% (a decline of over 27 percentage points since the last survey in late April, when it was 52.6%)
Andri Snær Magnason 8.5%
Doddsson 3.1% (based on 27% of the poll)
Halla Tómasdottir 1.7%
Others 1.9%

(as soon as David Oddsson announced his candidacy he was added as a possible answer) 

Guðni Th. Jóhannesson has proportionally more support among women and those with long education. Olafur Ragnar Grimsson has relatively more support from men and those with less schooling and in rural areas than in the capital. Andri Snær Magnason has proportionally the most support from the youngest age group and those with university education, but he seems marginalized now.

But ORG has decided not to run, so its a new race now:

"It is also now clear with the events of the last days that the nation now has the option of choosing candidates who have extensive knowledge of the nature, history and tasks of the presidency"

"Under these conditions, having been in office for 20 years, following in the light of the reasoning, analysis and conclusion that I described in the New Year Address.
I have decided to announce in this statement my decision not to run for re-election.
Once again I sincerely appreciate the strong support that I have enjoyed and hope all the good people who encouraged me to this decision will show good will and understanding.
This is my conclusion supported by the conviction that people can now successfully select a new president and I, after a long session in Bessastaðir, both in mind and heart is ready to gladly embark on new projects."

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With ORGs exit the race will likely open up a bit as the anti-establishment voters uniting behind Guðni Th. will return to their preferred candidates. 

Andri Snær Magnason plans to challenge Guðni Th. on the idea of a non-political presidency vs. a presidency that starts national debates on "the big issues" and will focus on the effects of the fact that "Iceland will be in the line of fire in terms of global warming in the coming years". 

Also jokes that "I see the "Independence people" are still afraid of me, so I have to find a way that they are not threatened. I need to appear more often with my grandmother."

On ORG:  "It did not surprise me considering he was in a cul de sac with the debate on the relationship with his wifes "offshore activities". "It was pretty heavy lessons for him. I was always of the opinion he should have made way for the next generations."

The next poll should be pretty interesting. Hard to say how the ORG vote will be distributed. 

Also, it should be impossible for the candidates that have dropped out to get the necessary signatures, and none of the remaining "possibles" are likely to enter, so I think we have the final field now with the exception of a few that will fail to get enough signatures. 

Though Bæring Ólafsson says he will think about it and declare within a couple of days, while Hrann­ar Pét­urs­son has ruled out restarting his campaign. 

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Second choices from the MMR poll. 50.6% of ORG voters would choose Guðni Th., less than 5% ASM and 24.8% others while 9.2% wouldn't vote if ORG didn't run, but that only 27% of respondents knowing Doddsson would run that may change quite a bit.

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A grand total of 89 absentee ballots so far... Its possible to vote again right up to election day and then the previous vote is invalid as its always the last vote that counts. So in principle you can annoy the officials by voting 56 times (but you obviously need to be an arsehole to do that, though it would be more relevant this year with fourteen candidates - you could vote four times for all of them if you had nothing better to do). Its simply the election law that requires you can vote 8 weeks prior to the election and which then collides with the 5 week presidential declaration rule in the constitution. All other elections needs to be called at least eight weeks in advance, but not the presidential. In a normal country they would have standardized that, but thats not the Icelandic way.

Yet another middle aged nobody has announced his candidature. Fishing engineer Magnús Ingberg Jónsson (46) is running on abolishing indexation of housing loans. Will call a referendum on it if the Althing doesn't agree.

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Well, it seems this won't become competitive.. (unless our humble, down to earth scholar and family man, turns out to be connected to some sinister activities, but it doesn't seem likely. His wife's company organizes literary retreats, which is just about the most harmless business activity imaginable.

Fréttablaðið poll from yesterday (some answers from before ORG withdrew)

Guðni Th. Johannesson 69.0%
David Oddsson 13.7%
Andri Snær Magnasn 10.7%
Olafur Ragnar Grimsson 3.2%
Halla Tómasdóttir 1.0%
Elísabet Jökulsdóttir 0.5%
Sturla Jónsson 0.5%
Magnús Ingi Magnússon 0.4%
Benedikt Kristján Mewes 0.2%
Others 0.8%



Women:
Guðni Th. 72.2%
Andri Snær 13.1%
Doddsson 8.6%

Men:
Guðni Th. 65.7%
Andri Snær 8.3%
Doddsson 18.8%

18 to 49
Andri Snær 13.8%
Doddsson 11.0%.

50+
Andri Snær 6.6%
Doddsson 17.2%

(the age distribution for Guðni Th. was just reported to be too even to be worth mentioning)

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I guess the most interesting question now is whether Guðni Th. will break Kristján Eldjárn's 1968 record for non-incumbents when he got 65.6% against Gunnar Thoroddsen. Eldjárn was an archeologist, who was unexpectedly propelled into the race by positive media exposure and public distaste of an anointed heir, while Guðni Th. is a historian unexpectedly propelled into the race by positive media exposure and public distaste of a president who felt entitled to the office and thought he could stay on as long as he pleased. So the parallels are striking, but different personalities.

The other issue is whether Doddsson running will hurt IP in the polls. Bjarni Benediktsson just said it was "interesting" when Doddsson announced and that he "of course would vote for his old colleague and fellow party member", but he is obviously not pleased with the "Old Iceland" vs. "New Iceland" narrative of the campaign with the ultimate symbol of the pre-crash IP establishment reminding centrist and non-aligned voters of all the things they do not like about IP and how things were run in the past.

(there is a certain way of saying "interesting" where you just know the person saying it is cursing inside and thinking "Oh no")

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Looks unlikely Andri Snær wins the presidency, but he did win this years Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire literary award for “the best and most creative foreign novel to be published in France in the past year”.

"LoveStar, published in Icelandic back in 2002, is described by World Literature Today as a “stinging satire” on capitalism, power and invasive bureaucracy."

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Bær­ing Ólafs­son has decided against resuming his campaign and has instead - surprisingly - endorsed Andri Snær Magnason calling him "a sharp, intelligent, energetic man, strictly honest, determined, tenacious and courageous". Probably won't matter, but Andri Snær needs non-leftist/artist endorsements in order to broaden his support.

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Signatures can be handed in from today onwards. Baldur Ágústsson, Benedikt Kristján Mewes, Elísabet Jökulsdóttir,  Magnús Ingberg Jónsson and Magnús Ingi "Texas-Maggi" Magnússon haven't collected the required 1,500. The last one is a bit surprising since he handed out free burgers for signatures, but maybe his burgers are no good . Elísabet Jökulsdóttir was one of the first to declare, but hasn't been very active - she skipped a debate and I assume she more or less gave up along the way. The other three are the two late comers + Mewes, who never had a chance.

Andri Snær Magna­son, Ari Jós­eps­son, Ást­þór Magn­ús­son, Davíð Odds­son, Guðni Th. Jóhann­es­son, Guð­rún Mar­grét Páls­dótt­ir, Halla Tóm­as­dótt­ir, Hildur Þórð­ar­dóttir og Sturla Jóns­son all claim to have collected the required number of signatures.  Doddsson actually had trouble getting enough signatures as many of the party faithful had already signed for others. He had to "cajole" the staff at Morgunblaðið into signing and getting friends and family to sign, so a bit embarrassing for him. 

Candidates must submit signatures in all four "quarters" of the country today, officials will then go through the lists next week and names and ID numbers compared to the national registry and make sure that no name is used multiple times (which is pretty likely given the number of candidates this year). They then get until midnight 20 May to correct their lists if any are missing and the final candidate list is published on May 27. New candidates can declare and hand in signatures right up to the 20th, but it would be unheard of to enter after today.

So it looks like a record 9 candidates, up from the previous record of 6 in 2012. Though one or two of the minor candidates might end up short.

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Elísabet Jökulsdóttir says she only needs some signatures from the east and north and will get them, and "Texas-Maggi" apparently hasn't collected from "the rural areas", but thinks he can do it on the week-end while his place is closed anyway, pretty optimistic . There is a requirement that you should get a proportional share from each of the four historic quarters, so you can't just collect them all from Reykjavík. 



So far the status is:



EDIT: Ari Jósepsson has withdrawn citing to lack of media coverage of minor candidates as the reason. Weird time to do it, but probably didn't actually have the signatures.

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Mask­ína poll from 10-13 May - first poll with no ORG answers.

Guðni Th. Jóhann­es­son 67.2
Davíð Odds­son14.8 
Andri Snær Magna­son 12.1
Halla Tóm­as­dótt­ir 2.9
Others 3.0

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University of Iceland poll:

Guðni Th. Jóhann­es­son 67.1
Davíð Odds­son17.4
Andri Snær Magna­son 7.8
Sturla Jónsson 1.8
Halla Tóm­as­dótt­ir 1.5
Others 4.4

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Doddsson now accuses Guðni Th. of "wanting to undermine the constitution" (by advocating they change the referendum clause) + having been in favour of the Icesave agreement and the EU (last part is true), which means he can't be trusted. Also says he won't need the presidential salary, but will live off his pension and will cut down travel expenses and instead open up the presidential residence to "the people" (presumably not all of them   ). So setting a populist tone.

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Looking at some of the numbers from the 10-13 May Maskina poll (with Guðni Th. at 2/3)
maskina.is/images/masknuknnun_forsetaframbo_ma2016.pdf


Guðni Th. by party:

SDA 86.7
Pirates 75.3
BF 71.6 
Left Greens 66.9 
PP 51.7 
IP 39.3 (respectable share)


Davíð Oddsen by party:

IP 55.4 
PP 31.5
BF 9.9 
Pirates 3.1 
SDA 3.0
Left Greens 0.0 


Andri Snær Magnusson by party:

Left greens 29.0
BF 18.6 
Pirates 13.2 
SDA 6.3
PP 5.6 
IP 0.5


Second choice:

Andri Snær Magnason. Hela 32,5
Halla Tómasdóttir 23.2 (compared to only 2.9% having her as first choice - Guðni Th. killed her chances)
Guðni Th. Jóhannesson 17.8 
Davíð Oddsson 10.7 


Second choice for Guðni Th. voters:

Andri Snær Magnason 45.1
Halla Tómasdóttir 28.0 
Davíð Oddsson 14.5 


Among those who wanted to vote ÓRG: 

Davíð Oddsson 48.9
Guðni Th. Jóhannesson 34.7
Andri Snær Magnason 6.9
Halla Tómasdóttir 3.5

The only one that could potentially challenge Guðni Th. is Andri Snær Magnason if opposition voters decide they do not have to play it safe in order to avoid Doddsson. As expected Davíð Oddsson doesn't have potential to expand beyond his core vote.

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Magnus Ingi Magnússon has withdrawn his candidacy as he lacks too many signtures in the North and East (guess the long week-end trip to "the countryside" didn't work out for him..). Instead he plans on running for the Althing on a populist platform:
Zero public support for art or religion (= privatize the state church), all fishing quotas to be sold on the free market, better healthcare with private enterprises playing a big part, a new constitution and fewer officials (pesky bureaucrats..).

"If there is a political force in Iceland who wants to work on these issues, then I am ready for cooperation." More or less sounds like the platform for the old Liberal Party, but they merged into Dawn together with two rival groups of civil rights activists, so not sure where goes. He could form his own one man party like Sturla Jónsson and go for a constituency seat.

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Baldur Ágústsson, Benedikt Mewes, Elísabet Jökulsdóttir and Magnús Ingberg Jónsson hadn't handed in their signatures this morning. Mewes only had a hundred and has officially withdrawn, Magnús Ingberg claimed he lacked "a heck of a lot". Elísabet Jökulsdóttir sounded confident she would make it and Baldur Ágústsson has avoided the press. 

The other eight probably have enough signatures as the minor candidates among them entered the race early on. So 8-9 candidates, depending on whether Elísabet Jökulsdóttir makes it before midnight.