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Post by Deleted on Oct 14, 2016 22:20:19 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Oct 15, 2016 11:39:15 GMT
Status regarding government formation:
- For the first time ever it looks like seven parties will enter the Althing.
- The current government will not be reelected (and large parts of IP do not want to be in government with PP anyway).
- PP is in shambles - SDG keeps accusing SIJ of having couped him at the conference by preventing delegates from voting (though no disenfranchised delegates have come forward) and "buses mysteriously arriving before the final vote" (said to be Chinese tourists...). In other words he is increasingly paranoid, but will get in and retain significant support. Even if it might be easier to hold the party together if its in government (protecting rural interests) and the opposition trusts SIJ on a personal level, it seems unlikely the party can enter a coalition.
- LG and SDA (now controlled by its moderate left wing) will not accept IP being part of a coalition, neither will the Birgitta Jónsdottir/Smarí McCarthy wing of the Pirates, which seems to be dominant (and given the Pirates have made a new constitution their single most important goal a coalition with IP would be problematic for all wings).
- Viðreisn can not get its agricultural and fishing policies implemented with IP and PP. They also still insist that there should be a vote on the EU-membership negotiations (thought to be killed for good by Brexit).
- The Pirates do not have a PM candidate, neither do BF.
- IP can not allow their former deputy leader Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir to become PM, as that could threaten their dominant position on the centre-right. If Viðreisn enters a coalition with IP without getting the PM the party will likely be "clegged".
This leads to the following conclusions:
The most likely coalition is one inclding the current opposition: LG, SDA, BF and the Pirates. This is the coalition currently running Reykjavík. The four parties have not been able to agree on a joint platform and they have not formed the much talked about electoral alliance (or even a party, often dubbed "Katrínarflokkurin"). The logical PM for such a coalition is Katrín Jakobsdóttir from LG as the leader of the biggest non-Pirate government and the most popular politician in the country, this will annoy the SDA right wing, but they are marginalized. If SDA leader Oddný Harðardóttir fails to get elected (far from unlikely on a bad result as she is running in the small South constituency) this option might become harder and depend on who gets in (if SDA goes below 7% they might panic and decide to stay in opposition rather than be squeezed in a big coalition led by their rivals).
The second most likely option is Viðreisn, Pirates, BF, SDA under Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir. This centrist, europhile coalition would agree on a large number of issues and there has been talks between the Pirates and Viðreisn. It will probably fall short of a majority and the leftist part of the Pirates may have difficulty accepting Þorgerður Katrín as PM. It is also unclear whether SDA and BF are all that keen to open the EU question again post-Brexit (which would be inevitable with this combo). Though a referendum on whether to resume negotiations has become an article of faith for many.
If none of these options have a majority (which could happen given that IP have the most reliable voters, and the Pirates the most unreliable), the situation would be quite murky. I think PP as the remaining moderate party will be in play for a centrist/centre-left combo, which may include an actual split of the party. Otherwise it will be a poker game between IP and Viðreisn about who gets to lead a centre-right coalition (which would include BF) and decide its priorities. IP is fairly isolated on the right, and I think Viðreisn would come out on top. The problem is the internal dominance of the Big Fishing lobby in IP. They would prefer a new election to any compromise on fishing quotas or EU. As mentioned above I think both parties would try to avoid this scenario as it poses a threat to both of them. Bjarni Benediktsson would almost certainly prefer SDA and BF to Viðreisn, but the question is if they would be prepared to do this - it would require dangerous backtracking for SDA. And IP/SDA/BF would be unlikely to have a majority anyway.
The Icelandic constitution does not prevent minority governments, but there is zero tradition for it except as short-lived, temporary solutions. But then again there has never been seven parties in the Althing (and one of them being a fairly disorganized "anti-politics" party). The Pirates could provide outside support for a coalition they aren't part of.
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Oct 16, 2016 9:58:53 GMT
Was there any particular reason for the original north-south division of Reykjavik? This time round it produces a very neat boundary, but Miklabraut has never seemed to me to mark a real community boundary. The much bigger difference is between the city centre in the west and the suburbs in the east, although then again I don't know how far in to the suburbs you'd have to go to get population equality.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 16, 2016 11:08:42 GMT
Was there any particular reason for the original north-south division of Reykjavik? This time round it produces a very neat boundary, but Miklabraut has never seemed to me to mark a real community boundary. The much bigger difference is between the city centre in the west and the suburbs in the east, although then again I don't know how far in to the suburbs you'd have to go to get population equality. The two Reykjavík constituencies only cover the municipality of Reykjavík, so most of the suburbs are outside of it (in the SW, which covers the other six municipalities in the capital region, Höfuðborgarsvæðið) and you would have to add a significant part of the central city to the inner suburbs in order to make the constituencies equal. The purpose isn't to create a natural divide, but simply to divide the capital into two parts that are roughly equal to the other constituencies and have roughly the same political distribution (which isn't entirely possible as the north will inevitably be to the left of the south). The distribution of constituency seats for this election is unchanged from 2013 and is: NW: 7 seats NE: 9 seats South: 9 seats SW: 11 seats Reykjavík South: 9 seats Reykjavík North: 9 seats The three constituencies in the capital area have 2 levelling seats each, while the three "rural" constituencies have 1 each. See: Icelandic_parliamentary_election,_2013#Method_for_apportionment_of_constituency_seats on Wiki for an explanation of what that means. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 16, 2016 11:37:57 GMT
Since it seems impossible to link directly to the relevant paragraph I might as well quote the levelling seat paragraph in full:
"After the initial apportionment of constituency seats, all the parties that exceed the election threshold of 5% nationally will also qualify to potentially be granted the extra leveling seats, which seek to adjust the result towards seat proportionality at the national level.
The calculation procedure for the distribution of leveling seats is, first, for each party having exceeded the national threshold of 5%, to calculate the ratio of its total number of votes at the national level divided by the sum of one extra seat added to the number of seats the party have so far won. The first leveling seat will go to the party with the highest ratio of votes per seat. The same calculation process is then repeated, until all 9 leveling seats have been allocated to specific parties. It should be noted that a party's "votes per seat" ratio will change during this calculation process, after each additional leveling seat being won. The second and final step is for each party being granted a leveling seat to pin point, across all constituencies, which of its runner-up candidates (candidates that came short of winning direct election through a constituency seat) should then win this additional seat. This selection is made by first identifying the constituency having the strongest "relative constituency vote shares for this additional seat of the party", which is decided by another proportional calculation, where the "relative vote share for the party list in each constituency", is divided with the sum of "one extra seat added to the number of already won constituency seats by the party list in the constituency". When this strongest constituency has been identified, the leveling seat will be automatically granted to the highest placed unelected runner-up candidate on the party list in this constituency, who among the remaining candidates have the highest personal vote score (the same figure as the one used when ranking candidates for constituency seats).
The above described method is used for apportionment of all the party allocated leveling seats. Note that when selecting which of a party's constituencies shall receive its apportioned leveling seat, this identification may only happen in exactly the same numerical order as the leveling seats were calculated at the party level. This is important because the number of available leveling seats are limited per constituency, meaning that the last calculated leveling seats in all circumstances can never be granted to candidates who belong to constituencies where the available leveling seats already were granted to other parties."
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Oct 16, 2016 21:05:54 GMT
Was there any particular reason for the original north-south division of Reykjavik? This time round it produces a very neat boundary, but Miklabraut has never seemed to me to mark a real community boundary. The much bigger difference is between the city centre in the west and the suburbs in the east, although then again I don't know how far in to the suburbs you'd have to go to get population equality. The two Reykjavík constituencies only cover the municipality of Reykjavík, so most of the suburbs are outside of it (in the SW, which covers the other six municipalities in the capital region, Höfuðborgarsvæðið) and you would have to add a significant part of the central city to the inner suburbs in order to make the constituencies equal. The purpose isn't to create a natural divide, but simply to divide the capital into two parts that are roughly equal to the other constituencies and have roughly the same political distribution (which isn't entirely possible as the north will inevitably be to the left of the south). The distribution of constituency seats for this election is unchanged from 2013 and is: NW: 7 seats NE: 9 seats South: 9 seats SW: 11 seats Reykjavík South: 9 seats Reykjavík North: 9 seats The three constituencies in the capital area have 2 levelling seats each, while the three "rural" constituencies have 1 each. See: Icelandic_parliamentary_election,_2013#Method_for_apportionment_of_constituency_seats on Wiki for an explanation of what that means. I get all that. I'm just not clear why it's north-south instead of east-west. I presumed it was essentially an attempt to crack somebody's vote, but I wasn't sure if it was about marginalising city centre hipsters or suburbanites on the city edge. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 16, 2016 21:18:20 GMT
The two Reykjavík constituencies only cover the municipality of Reykjavík, so most of the suburbs are outside of it (in the SW, which covers the other six municipalities in the capital region, Höfuðborgarsvæðið) and you would have to add a significant part of the central city to the inner suburbs in order to make the constituencies equal. The purpose isn't to create a natural divide, but simply to divide the capital into two parts that are roughly equal to the other constituencies and have roughly the same political distribution (which isn't entirely possible as the north will inevitably be to the left of the south). The distribution of constituency seats for this election is unchanged from 2013 and is: NW: 7 seats NE: 9 seats South: 9 seats SW: 11 seats Reykjavík South: 9 seats Reykjavík North: 9 seats The three constituencies in the capital area have 2 levelling seats each, while the three "rural" constituencies have 1 each. See: Icelandic_parliamentary_election,_2013#Method_for_apportionment_of_constituency_seats on Wiki for an explanation of what that means. I get all that. I'm just not clear why it's north-south instead of east-west. I presumed it was essentially an attempt to crack somebody's vote, but I wasn't sure if it was about marginalising city centre hipsters or suburbanites on the city edge. East/West would give a more uneven distribution. North/South allocates all sorts of voters in both constituencies. Its not about marginalizing anyone, just being as fair as possible. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 16, 2016 23:10:31 GMT
The Pirates have today stated they will not enter a coalition with IP or PP (citing involvement in corruption/Panama Papers) and have sent letters to the other four parties (LG, SDA, BF and Vidreisn) inviting them to bilateral talks. They will then announce the results of said talks on the 27th, so voters know what coalitions seem likely (transparency et al..). The four other parties have reacted politely and accepted the invitation, but refused to commit to actual government talks before the election.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 17, 2016 15:22:41 GMT
Nine parties have gotten their lists approved in all six constituencies: IP, PP, SDA, LG, BF, Pirates, Viðreisn, Dawn and the People's Party. The People's Front of Iceland are running in all constituencies except the Northwest. The Humanist Party only in Reykjavík South. The Icelandic National Front failed to get their SW list approved and are only running in the South and Northwest. They have applied for an extension, saying the two defectors stole lists with signatures, but have very little chance of getting it. Their leadership are considering filing criminal charges against the defectors.
The official candidate lists are published on Wednesday.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 17, 2016 15:27:57 GMT
AdminSTB Of the parties listed in the poll the Conservative Party, Rainbow and the Rural Party aren't running, so they should be removed (though no one have voted for them).
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Oct 17, 2016 21:24:25 GMT
I get all that. I'm just not clear why it's north-south instead of east-west. I presumed it was essentially an attempt to crack somebody's vote, but I wasn't sure if it was about marginalising city centre hipsters or suburbanites on the city edge. East/West would give a more uneven distribution. North/South allocates all sorts of voters in both constituencies. Its not about marginalizing anyone, just being as fair as possible. Given that the north-south boundary has moved in the past, this explanation doesn't make sense. You could draw two east-west constituencies with equal population, even if they didn't quite reflect the different natures of the east and west of the city. And elsewhere the Althingi has been distinctly relaxed about a comparatively high degree of malapportionment, so it's not like absolute population equality is a fundamental Icelandic value. Frankly, any map which allocates all sorts of voters to different constituencies rather than going for some kind of rough sort is usually trying to marginalise somebody. |
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Post by AdminSTB on Oct 17, 2016 22:09:19 GMT
AdminSTB Of the parties listed in the poll the Conservative Party, Rainbow and the Rural Party aren't running, so they should be removed (though no one have voted for them). Unfortunately, it isn't possible to alter existing polls. It would mean deleting the poll altogether and starting from scratch. The best thing to do is probably just to ignore those options. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 17, 2016 22:24:58 GMT
AdminSTB Of the parties listed in the poll the Conservative Party, Rainbow and the Rural Party aren't running, so they should be removed (though no one have voted for them). Unfortunately, it isn't possible to alter existing polls. It would mean deleting the poll altogether and starting from scratch. The best thing to do is probably just to ignore those options. Okay. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 17, 2016 22:50:20 GMT
East/West would give a more uneven distribution. North/South allocates all sorts of voters in both constituencies. Its not about marginalizing anyone, just being as fair as possible. Given that the north-south boundary has moved in the past, this explanation doesn't make sense. You could draw two east-west constituencies with equal population, even if they didn't quite reflect the different natures of the east and west of the city. And elsewhere the Althingi has been distinctly relaxed about a comparatively high degree of malapportionment, so it's not like absolute population equality is a fundamental Icelandic value. Frankly, any map which allocates all sorts of voters to different constituencies rather than going for some kind of rough sort is usually trying to marginalise somebody. 1959 to 1999 they simply used the 8 regions (landsvæði), then they merged the seven provincial ones into three roughly equal ones and carved up the capital region in three to secure parity. Two in Reykjavík and one for the rest. Reykjavík has a special status as party leaders and heavyweights are normally elected here (though the SW has become more popular in recent years), so it was important to secure a fair distribution in Reykjavík city when they carved up the capital area in three. You could perhaps do it East/West, but its just easier to do North/South. They merged Vesturland, the West Fiords and Norðurland vestra into NW, Norðurland eystra and (the bulk of) Austurland into East, Suðurland and Suðurnes into South. There were only two changes of regional borders. The thinly populated areas south/southeast of Vatnajökull was transferred to the South for practical reasons and the part of Hafnafjördur municipality that is on the south coast was incorporated in the capital region (as it had long been for other purposes). There was no manipulation of constituencies, they just tried to reduce the rural overrepresentation and give more seats to the capital region.   |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 18, 2016 11:20:26 GMT
The five points the Pirates want the opposition parties to agree on a joint framework for implementing:
- a new constitution
- higher compensation to the state from companies using natural resources, such as fish stocks and energy
- free healthcare
- greater public involvement in political decision making
- fighting corruption to regain trust in the political system
SDA and LG are positive, BF says its too "far reaching", and Viðreisn, refuse to enter any sort of pre-election alliance or commitment. IP says the Pirates have exposed themselves as "a traditional leftist party".
The next polls should be fairly interesting. Around 63-66% of voters do not want the IP/PP coalition to continue and if they fear BF and Viðreisn are "unreliable" as anti-IP/PP votes they may swing back to the Pirates (that seems to be their plan). But Icelandic tradition is that the parties run on their own platform and only negotiate afterwards, so it may backfire. BF called it "politics by threats" and that will likely resonate with some voters.
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Post by Devil Wincarnate on Oct 18, 2016 22:29:55 GMT
I'm currently near Selfoss in southern Iceland.
The only sign of an election I've seen so far is Katrin Jakobsdottir on television, and a giant billboard for Vidreisn.
Katrin looks weirdly like Rebecca Front about twenty years ago.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 18, 2016 22:32:59 GMT
Viðreisn chairman Benedikt Jóhannesson has in a radio interview ruled out that the party will enter into coalition with IP and PP. This leaves BF as the last opposition party that hasn't ruled out working with the government and more or less guarantees that Iceland will get a government based on (parts of) the current opposition.
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Post by Devil Wincarnate on Oct 19, 2016 16:51:57 GMT
The debate format here appears to be that six party representatives (not necessarily leaders) are questioned.
In the one on now, the lady from Vidreisn (Katrin Gunnarsdottir I think) and the chaps from the IP and SDA come across well. Birgitta Jonsdottir is the only party leader as far as I can tell, and comes across as a bit odd, not making eye contact as she speaks.
The real weirdo though is the People's Front representative, who hasn't looked up from his notes, and looks like they found him working in his back garden- he's even wearing a party t-shirt.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 19, 2016 19:23:36 GMT
First poll after the Pirates initiative, though before Viðreisn declined to support IP/PP (half the sample from Thursday/half from Monday). Viðreisn drop nearly two points (they are always low in FB, so were on 8.5 while in double digits in other polls).
I would not normally include Fréttablaðið, but this one looks somewhat reasonable (if one take into account they usually overpoll IP) and they have increased the number of answers by calling on two non-adjacent days. They are not in the habit of overpolling LG, so the 19.2% is interesting. Peoples Party approaching the threshold.
IP 23.7
Pirates 20.7
Left Greens 19.2
PP 8.5
BF 7.4 prósent,
Viðreisn 6.6
SDA 6.5
Peoples Party 3.4
Dawn 2.0
Icelandic National Front 1.5
Peoples Front of Iceland 0.2
Others 0.3 (they allowed answer for parties not running, Humanists on 0.0)
Seat distribution:
IP 17
Pirates 14
LG 13
PP 6
BF 5
Viðreisn 4
SDA 4
Centre-right 27 (but ruled out by Viðreisn anyway)
"Centrists United" 27
Pirates/LG 27
Centre-left 36 (doesn't work without BF as Pirates, LG & SDA are only at 31)
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Post by AustralianSwingVoter on Oct 20, 2016 10:05:10 GMT
@odo how do you know so much about politics everywhere in Europe?
PS You are a fantastic and vital asset to the forum as without you no one would care about polls in smaller european countries for their upcoming election which will get 10 seconds on the news if it's lucky
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