Iceland of the free
I love the Icelanders, they seem to be an independent lot, and do their own thinking.
I see they managed to get 8 different parties into the Althing which is good, no party having a majority of any kind, which is also good.
Still in the hunt to form governing coalition, if it can be bothered Iceland's privacy-friendly Pirate Party has lost four seats at new national elections. In October 2016 the party topped opinion polls and looked set to become a partner in a governing coalition, but ended up with fifteen per cent of the vote and ten seats, …
What does remind me of our parties is the fate of Bright Future.
They went into a coalition to keep the larger partners honest and accountable. When this child abuse scandal hit, they did the decent thing and forced an election. As a result they have been wiped out, zero seats in this election.
Voters always punish the honest side of any coalition.
Voters always punish the honest side of any coalition.
I've yet to see any coalition with an honest side, they're all made up of parties that couldn't make it alone but are still desperate to get some power, somehow, no matter what principles have to be compromised. Which is why they get a kicking later, voters arent that stupid.
It wasn't the Panama Papers that sank the Icelandic government (though it should). It was something much more sordid.
Former Prime Minister Bjarni Benediktsson's father signed a letter recommending that a convicted paedophile, Hjalti Sigurjón Hauksson who had been convicted of raping his stepdaughter almost daily for twelve years should have his civil status restored. This is an unusual provision in Icelandic law that allows convicted criminals to have their records wiped so that they can return to a very small society. The cases are reviewed by the Ministry of the Interior, and incredibly previous 'restorations of honour' have included convicted murderers and paedophiles.
The application received huge amounts of attention in the media but the Ministry of Justice refused to disclose the names of the backers, despite being legally obliged to do so. PM Bjarni was informed that his father was involved in the case by the Minister of Justice, Sigríður Andersen, several months earlier, but continued to refuse to disclose the names until he was forced to do so by a Parliamentary committee.
At that point his coalition partners, Bright Future, pulled out of the government claiming that it was clear the Independence Party was not sharing information with the entire government.
Unfortunately this tight link of friends and family is a recurrent feature in Iceland - the same mix was central to bringing down the banks ten years ago.
The Panama Papers sank the Icelandic government. They had an election and after months of wrangling a three-party coalition was set up to take over.
Then the issue you reference became known and one member of the coalition walked away from it the same day, forcing a second election so soon after the first.
Now they have to wrangle more coalition deals again. Unfortunately Iceland doesn't have the facility for a minority government so this could run and run...
A UK investment company created earlier this year to invest in digital infrastructure assets has splurged £231m to acquire a sizeable data centre in Iceland on the site of a former NATO airfield and naval base.
The Verne Global site – which was established in 2010 and harnesses power from hydroelectric and "predictable" geothermal activity while using Iceland's chilly climate to keep things cool – is deemed to be highly efficient.
New owner Digital 9 Infrastructure (D9) believes there is plenty of scope to expand the operation at the 40-acre site to tap into demand for green digital infrastructure.
Interview Edinburgh-based Skyrora launched its two-stage Skylark Micro rocket from Iceland over the weekend. The Register spoke to business operations manager Derek Harris about the mission and what comes next.
We spoke to Skyrora almost exactly a year ago as the company was exhibiting its Skylark Nano at the Bayes Centre during 2019's Edinburgh Art Festival. Since then it has launched the Nano a third time and performed a static fire of its liquid-fuelled sub-orbital Skylark L.
Last weekend was the turn of the Skylark Micro in Iceland as the company continued testing its avionics, processes, and procedures ahead of wheeling out the bigger beasts.
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