The main objective of the Social Democratic Alliance according to the platform passed at the national convention held this weekend is to remove the current coalition of Progressive and Independence parties from power.
The new president of the Social Democrats, Ingibjörg Solrún Gísladóttir, was elected by an overwhelming majority of 7997 votes out of the approximately twelve thousand votes cast; her sole adversary, former party president Össur Skarphéðinsson, received 3970. A new deputy president, Ágúst Ólafur Ágústsson, was also elected.
Ingibjörg Sólrún declared that the Social Democrats will fight against special interests and for democracy. She said that education and care for the elderly and the young must have greater priority. It was time to heal the wounds inflected by the current government.
The party platform also calls for new legislation on the financial affairs of the political parties. The Social Democrats furthermore propose that ministers will be barred from serving in Althingi concurrent with their tenure in executive office, and they support the President of Iceland’s constitutional right to put new legislation directly to the nation by calling for a referendum. The office of the Prime Minister is to take over gender equality issues, and new equal rights legislation is to be crafted if gender imbalance can not be corrected by other means.
If she attains her objective, Ingibjörg Sólrún will be Iceland’s first female Prime Minister.
Before the election results were announced, the outgoing president called for party unity under a new president.
