is being held today. Polls close at 22:00 their time (23:00 ours). Creature's prediction:-
1. Social Democrats Alliance
2. Left Greens
3. Independence Party (Tories)
4. Progressives (used to be the farmers' party)
The top two formed the caretaker govt after the SDA split from the Tories to bring down the coalition govt.
The SDA and the Left Greens will have a big majority in Alþingi and probably be there for the next 4 years.
The names are much more exciting in Icelandic.
1. Samfylkingin
2. Vinstri Grænir
3. Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn
4. Framsóknarflokkurinn
So Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir will be back as PM. Here her piccy - she do look a bit younger than her 66 years in this one, in other pics she is starting to look her age.
Looks like the majority might be smaller than Creature thought as the Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn doing a little better and the Vinstri Grænir a little worse than he expected.
Projected majority is 5 (Govt 34 everybody else 29) in the 63 seat Alþingi, which is enough. 32% of the votes counted so far.
Wergh.
Which party are SJA and VG, can you say 1/2/3/4.
any majority is something to be greatful for in a democracy, hung parliaments and co alitions are such messy doomed things.
Right, here we go.
1. Social Democrats Alliance or Samfylkingin 20 seats. The 'sam' element in their name gives the general meaning of 'together'. Samtal (together talk) is the word for 'conversation' and Samband is the Co-op.
2. Independence Party or Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn 16 seats. This is independence in the nationalist sense and also taking personal responsibility - the Sjálfstæðis (so Creature thinks) gives the feeling of 'self-standing'.
3. Left Green or Vinstri Grænir 14 seats. Vinstri means Left and Græn is Green. They will form the Govt with the SDA even though they don't agree on everything, like EU membership for example.
4. Progressives or Framsóknarflokkurinn 9 seats which is 2 more than they got last time round - how short people's memories are, as they had nearly as much to do with the Kreppa as the Independence Party. Framsóknar means Progressive. Flokkurin means band of men, party, tribe, that sort of thing.
There's also a new party called Civic Movement or Borgarahreyfingin and they got 4 seats. As Creature thinks they blame the Independence Party for most of the Kreppa, they will most likely side with the govt in most votes.
Turnout was 85.1%.
27 out of the 63 MPs are women. The Govt has 34 seats out of the 63.
Good luck, Iceland - you'll need it. They owe the UK £2.3 billion just for the Icesave deposit protection that they weren't allowed to wriggle out of - that is £7,500 for every Icelander. And that's only a small part of the foreign debt that the Young Vikings have lumbered their less wealthy countrymen with.
Wergh.
I see Johanna Sigurdardottir is the world's first openly gay leader. It will make a change, I must say, ours always seem so miserable.
And it bothers 99% of Icelanders not one jot. In fact many of them find it odd that nearly every foreign news item about Jóhanna kicks off about her being gay.
She is quite upfront about it, it is in her Prime Minister write-up here.
http://eng.forsaetisraduneyti.is/minister/cv
She look like she been on her holidays in the official piccy. More usually these days, she look like this!