Pirates get cold shoulder in Iceland
Radical party was vying to become biggest group in the island nation’s parliament
REYKJAVIK, ICELAND — After stormy years for their country and amid stormy weather, Icelanders voted Saturday in a national election that offered a choice between continuity and many shades of change, with the radical Pirate Party seeking to unseat the centre-right government.
Founded four years ago by an assortment of hackers, political activists and Internet freedom advocates, the Pirate Party has made big gains among Icelanders fed up with established parties after years of financial turmoil and political scandal.
Before voting day, polls had suggested the Pirates were vying with the centre-right Independence Party to become the biggest group in the volcanic island nation’s parliament, the Althingi.
They held just three of the 63 seats going into the election, and Pirate politician Birgitta Jonsdottir said she could “never have fantasized or dreamed” about its current poll numbers.
“If people are ready, we are ready,” Jonsdottir said after casting her vote at a Reykjavik school on a blustery day.
But Icelanders looked likely to steer away from a Pirate takeover, as partial results late Saturday showed voters favoured the incumbent Independence Party over the upstart band of buccaneers advocating direct democracy and Internet freedom.
With roughly a third of votes counted, the Independence Party had about 30 per cent of ballots and the Pirates just under14 per cent, putting them in third place behind the LeftGreen movement.
It’s still a better performance than predicted for the Independents, who have governed in coalition since 2013.
Coalition governments are the norm in Iceland’s multi-party system. It was not immediately clear whether the Independents would be able to assemble a coalition with other centrist and right-wing parties — or whether the Pirates and other opposition forces would get the numbers to govern.
The election was called after Prime Minister Sigmunder David Gunnlaugsson resigned in April amid public protests over his offshore holdings, revealed in the Panama Papers leak.
The tax-avoidance scandal out- raged many Icelanders, who suffered years of economic upheaval after the country’s banks collapsed within a week of one another during the 2008 global financial crisis.
“If people are sick of living in this turmoil that we have been having here in Iceland, where you never know what tomorrow is going to bring,” they should put their trust in the Pirates, Jonsdottir said.
“Change is beautiful. There’s nothing to worry about,” she said. “We are ready to do whatever people trust us to do.”
Individual parties rarely win outright in Iceland’s multiparty system. Saturday’s vote is likely to produce either a centre-right coalition involving the Independence and Progressive parties that have governed since 2013, or a left-of-centre coalition involving the Pirates, the Left Green Movement and others.
A wind-lashed volcanic island near the Arctic Circle, Iceland has become known for large street protests that ousted one government after the 2008 financial crash and dispatched another in April. It also has strong policies in support of social equality and women’s rights.
But Icelanders — infused with a spirit of Viking self-sufficiency — also have a strong conservative streak that leads some to mistrust the Pirates.
“They’ll make chaos,” was the verdict of fishmonger Marselius Gundmundsson.
Another unpredictable factor is Vidreisn, or Revival, a new centre-right party.
It was founded by former Independence Party members that advocate Iceland joining the European Union. It is performing strongly among conservative voters seeking a change from the old parties.
“We want to improve things in Iceland,” said party leader Benedikt Johannesson.
“We are a free-trade party, a proWestern party, an open society party.”
Paul Fontaine, news editor of newsmagazine Reykjavik Grapevine, said the 2008 crisis and the wave of popular protest that followed “broke the mould” of Icelandic politics.
“Icelanders, like many Europeans and North Americans, have grown pretty weary of establishment politics, whether they’re on the left or the right,” he said.
“I think that explains a large share of the Pirate Party’s support.”
The Pirates promised to introduce direct democracy, subject the workings of government to more scrutiny and place the country’s natural resources under public ownership.