Almost half of Icelanders who voted for the Centre and People’s Parties in the last parliamentary election would do so again if another election were held now. This is among the results of a new survey conducted by the research organisation Maskína, which wanted to track voter perceptions following the recent Klaustur Tapes scandal.
Maskína first asked participants what party they voted for in the last election and whether they would vote for that party again if another election were held today. Their findings showed that 48.8% of voters who voted for the Centre Party and 59.3% of voters who voted for the People’s Party – the two parties embroiled in the scandal – would vote for these parties again.
In their discussion of the results, Maskína notes that it’s interesting that almost the same percentage of voters who voted for the Left-Greens, or 60.7%, would do so again, “…and it needn’t be pointed out that no MP from that party was at Klaustur on the night in question.” The highest percentages of repeat voters were found among supporters of the Pirate Party (84%), the Independence Party (84.7%), and the Reform Party (92.3%).
When voters who’ve withdrawn their support from the People’s Party were asked what party they would vote for if another election was held today, just under 15% said they’d vote for the Pirate Party, 11% for the Reform Party, and 7.4% for the Progressive Party. Interestingly, the largest percentage of former Centre Party voters, or 16.3%, said they would switch their allegiances to the People’s Party, followed by the Independence Party, at 11.6%.
When these hypothetical votes were tabulated from these survey results, it became clear that neither the Centre Party nor the People’s Party would be able to get a representative into parliament if another election were held today. Instead, the Social Democrats would earn the highest percentage of votes, or 19.7%, followed by the Independence Party (19.3%), the Left-Greens (14.9%), the Pirates (14.9%), Reform (13.4%), and the Progressives (8.8%).
Neither the Centres nor the People’s Parties would break 5% support if another vote were held today: The Centre Party would only earn 4.6% of the vote, and the People’s Party 4.4%.
Maskína’s survey was conducted from November 30 to December 3, 2018 and included 1,311 respondents 18 years and older from around the country.
