Prime Minister Bjarni Benediktsdóttir announced at a snap press conference this afternoon that he is ending the government coalition and calling for elections on 30 November.
At the Prime Minister’s office, Bjarni told reporters that the coalition of his Independence Party with the Progressive Party and Left-Green Movement, which has been in power since 2017, had accomplished many things during a difficult period of time which included a global pandemic and volcanic activity in the Reykjanes peninsula. He said he’d tried his best to reach an agreement on issues with the coalition parties, but that he’d exhausted all possibilites.
Term ends nearly a year early
Bjarni told coalition leaders Sigurður Ingi Jóhannsson of the Progressive Party and Svandís Svavarsdóttir of the Left-Green Movement about his decision earlier today, RÚV reports. Svandís had called for earlier elections this spring, with the four year term supposed to end in September 2025 at the latest. At a party member meeting this Friday, Bjarni’s Independence Party discussed the state of the coalition, but Bjarni denied that he’d been pressured into making this decision.
Bjarni expects the parties to continue working together until the end of November, when elections could be set. If they can’t continue, he said, he’ll resign as Prime Minister and an interim government will take over.
Running again as leader
The government coalition’s approval rating has been historically low in recent months. The Independence Party, which has been a central party in Iceland’s electoral history, is also polling as low as 14% in some polls.
Bjarni mentioned immigration and energy issues as the ones that his party could not work on further with the coalition parties. He said that the Left-Green Movement had a vision for the future that is different from what he stands for. Still, he hopes that Alþingi, Iceland’s Parliament, can finish passing the budget before the end of the year, despite elections being called early.
Bjarni added that he made the decision himself to end the coalition agreement. He said he’d remain as the leader of the Independence Party and run again for office in November. He will meet with President of Iceland Halla Tómasdóttir tomorrow to make his decision official.
