Iceland elects new parliament

Copenhagen, Sep 25 (BNA): Iceland will elect a new parliament on Saturday, with polls opening at 10 am (1000 GMT).

The German news agency (dpa) reported that the first partial results will appear shortly after the polls close at 10 pm, but a final result is not expected until Sunday morning.

The Althing Parliament in Iceland, the oldest in the world, has 63 seats, which means that at least 32 seats are needed for a government majority.

Experts have predicted a tight race and believe that a future government could consist of a coalition of four or even five parties from the center-left spectrum.

The non-EU country of about 360,000 has been governed by Prime Minister Catherine Jacobsdottir for the past four years.

The 45-year-old is popular in the country, but her green left movement has lost some support due to the fact that, after the last parliamentary elections in 2017, she formed an unusual government coalition with the conservative Independence Party (D) and the rural Liberal Progress Party (B) .

But according to observers, the left-wing green Jacobsdottir movement still has a chance to win enough votes to stay in power despite the expected losses.

“She’s very popular as prime minister, even with people who don’t vote for her party,” political scientist Eva Heda Onodóttir of the University of Iceland in Reykjavik said ahead of the election.

Thanks to its remote location, Iceland has fared better during the coronavirus crisis than most other countries in Europe. However, more than a year since the pandemic began, the issue of health has been a major battleground during the election campaign along with climate change and the environment.

NS