Iceland has become the first country in Europe to elect a majority of women to parliament, according to the results announced on Sunday in elections marked by the weakened position of Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir in a government coalition that still holds a majority.
Of the 63 seats in the Althingi, 33 will be held by women, or 52.3%, according to final projections based on the final results of the ballot held on Saturday in the country of 370,000 inhabitants.
A first: no country in Europe has ever crossed the symbolic 50% mark in a parliament, Sweden so far occupying the first place with 47% of women deputies, according to data compiled by the World Bank.
“I am 85 years old, I have waited all my life for women to be in the majority […], and I’m really happy, ”Erdna, a resident of Reykjavik, told AFP.
While several parties themselves reserve a minimum proportion of women among their candidates, no law imposes a quota of women for legislative elections in Iceland.
The Nordic country is consistently at the forefront of feminism and for 12 consecutive years at the top of the World Economic Forum’s ranking for gender equality.
“This is yet another example of how far we have come on the road to full gender equality. […] I wish this Parliament great success, ”Icelandic Head of State Gudni Johannesson told AFP.
Behind this historic female first, the main victim of these elections is paradoxically a woman: Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir, whose left-wing environmentalist party lost three seats and came with 12.6% of the vote behind her two current right-wing allies .
Liesse
The big winner is the Progress Party (center-right), which won 13 seats, five more than in the last elections in 2017, with 17.3% of the vote.
The jubilation reigned in the night at the HQ of the party “back to the forefront of the political scene”, launched under the vivas its leader Sigurdur Ingi Johannsson, who finds himself in position of Prime Minister.
But the conservative party of former Prime Minister Bjarni Benediktsson remained Iceland’s leading party with 24.4% of the vote, thus keeping its 16-seat contingent when the polls predicted a decline.
With a total of 37 seats, the three allied parties therefore consolidate their majority in total, but the right is in a position of strength. With the option of finding another third partner who is closer ideologically, for example the centrist parties of the Reform (five seats) or the Center (three deputies).
Even if it is not certain that the three formations will continue to govern together and that the negotiations are traditionally long, Iceland is moving away from a scenario of political blockage that the polls feared.
Never since the spectacular bankruptcy of Icelandic banks in 2008 and the severe crisis that followed, has an outgoing Icelandic government retained its majority. We have to go back to 2003 to find a precedent.
Discussions must take place between the three party leaders and the question of the future tenant of Stjornarradid, the modest white house where the Icelandic heads of government sit, will necessarily arise, according to analysts.
“Given the decline we are seeing, the Left-Greens may have to reassess their position in government,” said Eva Önnudóttir, professor of political science at the University of Iceland.
Prime Minister Benediktsson? “I am not asking for that”, assured the leader of the conservatives on public television RUV, according to whom “we must strive to be in search of solutions”.
Since 2017, Katrin Jakobsdottir, 45, has made taxes more progressive, invested in social housing and extended parental leave. His management of the Covid – only 33 dead – has been hailed.
But this rare left-wing environmentalist in power also had to give up to save her coalition, such as her promise to create a national park in the center of the country.
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