As expected, the protesting Icelandic voter voted not "for" the parties that had long been out of power, but "against" the political forces that had led the country into a dead end, copying the dysfunctional economic models of large European countries with their "green fever" and predominantly service economies that created not a surplus product, but consumption on credit, which became the reason for the imbalance of state finances and resulted in high inflation, which had caused a great public dissatisfaction.
Alma Möller, Jóhann Páll Jóhannsson, and Kristrún Frostadóttir celebrate the results at the election night party of the Social Democratic Alliance. Photo: mbl.is / Eyþór Árnason
One of the unexpected results of the elections was the extremely low level of political forecasts made one day before the elections (see the material dated 29.11.2024). It seems that there is a big problem with political forecasts in Icelandic political science: the sum of errors in forecasting election results made up 17.6%, the rating of the four strongest parties was incorrectly predicted, and instead of the predicted eight parties, only six are presented in the Althing.
The majority of the MPs elected did not have a seat in Alþingi during the last term, a total of 34 out of 63. Here is a complete list of those MPs:
However, some in the group have in fact been members of parliament before. Dagbjört Hákonardóttir has held a seat for the Social Democratic Alliance for a part of the last term. Karl Gauti Hjaltason and Sigríður Á. Andersen have been MPs before and Andersen held the office of Minister of Justice for the Independence Party between 2017 and 2019. Sigurjón Þórðarson and Lilja Rafney Magnúsdóttir from the People's Party have also sat in Parliament before.
In addition, Rósa Guðbjartsdóttir, mayor of Hafnarfjörður got elected and two former mayors of Reykjavík as well, Jón Gnarr and Dagur B. Eggertsson.
No new parties got seats in parliament in the elections. The total number of parties in Alþingi drops by two, since both Píratar (Pirate Party) and Vinstri græn (Left Green Movement) got rejected in the elections.
Samfylkingin (Social Democratic Alliance) is the largest political party in Iceland after the parliamentary elections that took place yesterday. The party received 20,8% of the vote and 15 MPs elected.
The runner-up is Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn (Independence Party), with 14 MPs and 19,4% of the vote.
The parties that have been in government for the past seven years have lost a total of 18 seats compared to the last election, according to latest figures.
That is the same number of seats that the Social Democratic Alliance and the Left Green Movement lost in the 2013 elections.
The Progressive Party and the Left Green Movement each lose 8 seats and the Independence Party loses two. The Left Green Movement are falling out of parliament and are far from securing a single seat.
As things stand now it could happen that the next government will be formed without the participation of a single ruling party from the last government. That has only happened twice in the history of the republic, if we exclude short-lived single party minority governments that usually only lasted until the election after the previous government collapsed.
Photo: RÚV
Social Democratic Alliance – 20.8% (20.4%)
Independence Party – 19.4% (14.5%)
(Liberal) Reform Party – 15.8% (19.2%)
People’s Party – 13,8% (10.8%)
Centre Party – 12.1% (11.6%)
Progressive Party – 7.8% (7.8%)
Pirate Party – 3.0% (5.4%)
Socialist Party – 4.0% (5%)
Left-Green Movement – 2,3% (3.7%)
Democracy Party – 1.0% (1.1%)
Responsible Future – 0.0% (0.5%)
Source: RÚV
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