Protesters gathered in Austurvöllur Square in front of parliament once more on Saturday to voice their anger at the government’s recent sale of shares in Íslandsbanki bank. Hundreds of protesters gathered last week; the exact attendance numbers of Saturday’s event were not available at time of writing. However, Vísir reports that 2,000 people marked themselves as attending on the protest on Facebook, an event entitled “Bjarna Burt, Spillinguna Burt,” or “Out with Bjarni [Benediktsson, Minister of Finance], Out with Corruption.”
The protest was a festive one, and kicked off with a performance by Páll Óskar, and included speeches by former and current MPs, a reading by the “poet of the protest,” Anton Helgi Jónsson, and performances by hip hop acts XXX Rottweiler and Blaffi. Hot chocolate and doughnuts were served before and after the rally itself.
See Also: Hundreds Protest Sale of Íslandsbanki Shares
Íslandsbanki was fully owned by the government until last year, when it sold a 35% stake in the bank, something that had been on the government agenda for years. While that first offering was open to the public, last month’s offering was solely open to professional investors. The second sale was successful, reducing the government’s stake in the bank from 65% to 42.5%. The government has been criticised for the latter share offering’s lack of transparency, and for the 5% discount buyers received on the shares’ market value. The majority of the investors who purchased shares sold their stakes almost immediately for considerable profit.
Days after the first protest at Austurvöllur, the Icelandic government announced that it would be introducing a parliamentary bill to abolish Icelandic State Financial Investments (ISFI), the government’s holding company on the financial market. But protesters are not yet satisfied.
See Also: Government to Dismantle State Investment Company
The protesters have three demands: that the sale be rescinded, that Minister of Finance Bjarni Benediktsson resign, and that the board and CEO of the ISFI step down. Now that the latter demand has been achieved with the dismantling of ISFI all together, protesters remain focused on their first two goals.
‘Out with the puppets of capitalism in the government’
“We’re going to learn from this,” said headlining speaker Davíð Þór Jónsson, a pastor and actor who has been an outspoken leader in the Íslandsbanki protests. “We’ll learn to never, never, never again trust these people with a single thing. We’ll learn to never, never, never again trust political parties that form a government that would allow this to happen.” His remarks were met with cheers from the crowd.
“Our demands are unambiguous and reasonable,” Davíð Þór continued. “Out with the psychopaths [amoral people] in our financial system! Out with the puppets of capitalism in the government! Out with an ineffectual, cowardly Alþingi that doesn’t have the guts to affirm its lack of confidence in an unfit government that doesn’t just permit, but rather gives its blessing to the psychopaths plundering their own country!”
