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- Iceland’s government
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Iceland’s new Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson has been an MP since 2009. For the past four years he has also been leader of the Progressive Party (Framsóknarflokkurinns).
He is born in 1975 and is married with one child. He has a degree in economics and political science.
The leader of the Independence Party, Bjarni Benediktsson, is Iceland’s new Minister of Finance. A trained lawyer, he has been an MP since 2003. He has been leader of the Independence Party since 2009.
Bjarni Benediktsson is married with four children.
The two parties have a history of forming coalitions, usually under the leadership of the Independence Party.
- The parliamentary elections
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Iceland’s parliamentary elections were held on 27 April 2013. It resulted in a windfall for the Progressive Party (Framsóknarflokkurinn), which doubled its number of parliamentary seats. This gave the party the same number of seats as the centre-right Independence Party (Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn), and together they secured 38 seats.
There are 63 MPs in total. Since the 2008 crash, many MPs have been replaced. Nearly a third, 19 out of 63, are now serving their first term as MPs.
There are fewer female MPs than before, just under 40 percent of the total. Just three of the ten new government ministers are women.
A full 15 political parties took part in this year’s election, an unusually large number for Iceland. Six parties are now represented in parliament. The outgoing government parties, the Social Democratic Alliance and the Left-Green Movement, were the election’s big losers.
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