Iceland’s Prime Minister Steps Down to Run for President
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(Bloomberg) -- Iceland’s Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir will quit a year before the next general election to run for president in a move that could cost her environmentalist force the premiership in the north Atlantic nation.
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Jakobsdottir announced her move on Friday after intense speculation over the past days on her intentions. It’s not immediately clear who will become prime minister for the three-party coalition government spanning the political spectrum.
“The president should first and foremost speak to the values that the Icelandic society is built on — democracy, human rights, the rule of law,” Jakobsdottir said in an interview in Reykjavik. “It may sound like a platitude to some but these are values that have been under attack in recent years.”
The 48-year-old is one of Iceland’s most popular political figures and would be the youngest in the largely ceremonial presidential role, if elected. Up until her announcement, she led a grand coalition of her Left Green Movement, the right-wing Independence Party and the centrist Progressive Party after reelection as prime minister for a second four-year term in 2021.
She’s recently had to grapple with the fallout from four volcanic eruptions near inhabited areas that have wrecked the fishing town of Grindavik as well as wage talks that risked spurring inflation again.
Read More: Iceland Rocked by Volcanic Eruption as Lava Flows Resume
The parties in the ruling coalition now need to agree on what happens to the government, Jakobsdottir said.
“My view is that no one is indispensable,” she said. “The governmental agreement was not written with names and social security numbers of the participants.”
Talks on the future of the government will begin for real, Sigurdur Ingi Johannsson, chairman of Progressive Party, told reporters on Friday before the premier’s anticipated announcement. Jakobsdottir’s Left Green wants to continue in the coalition, Vice Chairman Gudmundur Ingi Gudbrandsson told broadcaster RUV earlier in the day.
If voted into office in the June 1 ballot, Jakobsdottir would be Iceland’s second female president after Vigdis Finnbogadottir was elected in 1980.
While Jakobsdottir’s first term as premier was characterized by a robust pandemic response and little infighting, tensions have grown in the last few years including on energy production and whaling. Her party’s popularity has dwindled to 6% in the latest Gallup poll, less than half of its backing in the 2021 vote and just above the 5% parliamentary threshold.
A linguist by education, the former lawmaker has held multiple government portfolios since 2009 and even co-authored a crime novel in 2022.
Jakobsdottir’s strongest rivals for the presidential role include political scientist Baldur Thorhalsson and a former mayor of Reykjavik, Jon Gnarr, according to latest polls.
--With assistance from Thomas Hall.
(Updates with comments from Jakobsdottir from third paragraph)
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