Iceland’s government collapses amid scandal

REYKJAVIK, ICELAND • Iceland is facing its second snap election in about a year after the Independence Partyled government collapsed over a scandal involving grants of clemency to convicted child molesters.

Prime Minister Bjarni Benediktsson on Friday said he would consult with parliament to seek a new election as soon as possible, maybe in November.

The move comes after he was abandoned by his coalition partners, the four-lawmaker Bright Future, and the Reform Party, which has eight legislators.

The Bright Future party accused the premier of committing a “breach of trust” after failing to inform the rest of the government that his father had written a letter vouching for the character of a convicted child molester so he could apply for a legal “clean slate.”

The issue has been much in the news in Iceland, where convicted pedophiles can apply to have their record expunged. “That goes against our policies here at Bright Future on transparency and a good way of working,” said Ottarr Proppe, head of the Bright Future party.

Calls for a snap election were made by most of the other parties in parliament, including the Pirate Party, which also demanded a vote on constitutional changes and called the Independence Party “unfit for government.”

Protests were called for Friday in Reykjavik, the site of major street demonstrations both after the country’s economic collapse in 2008 and last year following the revelations of the Panama Papers. Benediktsson’s name also surfaced in connection with that scandal, but he said he had previously disclosed his offshore holdings.

The premier said on Friday that he was “shocked” to hear of his father’s letter, never tried to conceal anything and was never part of the decision process in the cases in question.

“Iceland’s Jimmy Savile case: Our PM, who was in the Panama Papers, has hidden for two months his father’s support for a pedophiles clemency,” Smari McCarthy, a Pirate Party member of parliament, said on Twitter.

The turmoil has surfaced just as the coalition was presenting the budget to parliament and meetings were cancelled in the legislature on Friday.

Benediktsson said he would seek to continue as party leader, and that he believes the Independents can “gain strength” in an election. “There is a lot of turbulence at the moment,” he said. But “I think that when the dust settles people will see there is no corruption, there is no hiding of evidence.”

The coalition that collapsed had only a one-seat majority in parliament, and was cobbled together earlier this year after long negotiations.

Iceland’s previous government unravelled when thenprime minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson became the most high-profile casualty of the so-called Panama Papers.