Davíd Oddsson, governor and chairman of the Central Bank of Iceland and former prime minister, said in an interview with Focus, a supplement for Danish newspaper Fyens Stiftstidende on Sunday, that if he is forced to resign he will return to politics.
“I’m only 60 and perfectly healthy so I’m planning to remain [as Central Bank governor and chairman] for a few more years and then retire of my own free will like I did when I was prime minister,” Oddsson told Focus, according to Fréttabladid.
“If I am forced to resign the case looks different. Then I’ll go back to politics,” Oddsson vowed. After this comment the interviewer, the former chief editor of Fyens Stiftstidende Bent A. Koch, added, “No one should doubt that Davíd is ready for a fight.”
The interview appeared under the headline: “The People’s Scapegoat: I Warned Them but No One Would Listen.” The intro reads: “The man who all Icelanders are blaming will not give up of his own free will.”
In the interview, Oddsson is asked what it feels like being the man who is subject to the most criticism in Iceland since the collapse. “Of course it isn’t pleasing to be scolded. But I have tried it before and I have a clear conscience.”
However, Oddsson said he understood that the public is angry at politicians and at the entire system. He said he realized that “I, who have participated in the administration for so many years and now sit in the Central Bank, have been turned into a target, an icon for all of those by whom the people believe they were betrayed.”
Oddsson claimed that he had warned where the economy was headed the entire time but that no one had listened to his words of warning. He held that no one could deny that he has been very critical of the new investors as they had constantly gained more power and also wanted to rule the media. And the media in Iceland is neither independent nor free, Oddsson stated.
Prime Minister Geir H. Haarde would not give Fréttabladid any comments on the interview with Oddsson last night because he had not yet seen it.
Click here to read a Daily Life about Davíd Oddsson.
Copyright of photo of Davíd Oddsson: Icelandic Photo Agency.
