Iceland votes Saturday September 25 after four years of an unprecedented left-right coalition which has managed to put an end to the crises and scandals but risks losing its majority in the face of political fragmentation.
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The formation of a new alliance risks raising the temperature in the land of fire and ice - 370,000 inhabitants including 255,000 voters - theater for six months of a long volcanic eruption visible from the capital Reykjavik. Head of a left-wing environmental movement that had never before ruled Iceland, Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir is struggling to get a second term in a political landscape more fragmented than ever.
According to the polls, a record of nine parties out of the ten contending should share the seats of the Althingi - the parliament for more than a thousand years - making the governmental alliance which could emerge from it particularly illegible.
"It's difficult for politicians but I think it's better to have everyone at the table," said
Thorsteinn Thorvaldsson.
“When I was younger it was easier there were four parties, now there are ten.
But it's interesting, ”
the 54-year-old Icelandic told AFP.
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With 33 deputies out of 63, the outgoing coalition is a motley alliance of the Independence Party (conservative, 16 seats) of the veteran of Icelandic politics Bjarni Benediktsson, of the Progress Party (center right, 8 seats) of Sigurður Ingi Jóhannsson and Katrin Jakobsdottir's Left Green movement (increased from 11 to 9 seats after two defections). If some polls give the outgoing team a very narrow majority, others project its failure, except for complicated reinforcement of a fourth movement.
"Because there are so many parties, I think there will be several different possibilities to form a government,"
the prime minister said in an interview with AFP this week.
Although she is popular, her party is hovering around 10-12% in the polls and is in danger of losing several seats.
Enough to threaten his future in Stjórnarrádid, the modest white house where the Icelandic heads of government sit.
33 deaths from Covid only
During her tenure, she made income taxes more progressive, increased the budget for social housing and extended parental leave.
And his management of the Covid - only 33 dead - has been hailed.
But this rare member of a left-wing ecologist party to lead a European country also had to give up to save her coalition, such as her promise to create a national park in the center of a country with 32 active volcanic systems and 400 glaciers. .
This is only the second time since the 2008 financial crisis that a government has completed its mandate in this non-European Union country.
Against a backdrop of mistrust of the political class inherited from the financial collapse and repeated scandals, five legislative elections were held between 2007 and 2017.
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The Independence Party, which oscillates between 20 and 24% of voting intentions, risks losing seats but should remain the largest political formation.
Heir to a family that reigned on the Icelandic right, its leader, the former Prime Minister (January November 2017) and current Minister of Finance Bjarni Benediktsson survived his involvement in several scandals, including that of the Panama Papers in 2016 , and faces its fifth ballot.
"I am optimistic, I feel supported"
, he proclaimed during a campaign rally Monday, judging that his party would continue to be "the backbone of a new government".
Behind, no less than five political parties are credited with 10 to 15% of the vote: in addition to the Left Greens movement and the Progress Party - in a position to snatch second place - we find the Social Democratic Alliance (left), the Pirates (libertarian) and Reform (center right). To the left of the left, the new Icelandic Socialist Party is expected to make a breakthrough.
“There is no clear alternative to this government. If it falls and
(the three parties)
cannot continue, then it's just a general melee and the creation of a new coalition, ”
underlines political scientist Eiríkur Bergmann.
The first partial results will be known on Saturday shortly after the long day of voting, but the emergence of a majority will certainly require more than a night of counting.
