From Iceland — How Parliament Would Look If Elections Were Today

How Parliament Would Look If Elections Were Today

Published January 29, 2016

When current polling numbers are translated into seats in parliament, the government takes on a completely different form.

While the results of the latest Stöð 2/Fréttablaðið poll on levels of party support are known well enough by our readers, a series of percentages might not paint the clearest picture of what kind of parliament would be created if elections were held today. Kjarninn, though, has done the math, and the results make for a very different parliament from the one we currently have.

The Pirate Party, which topped the polls for the 12 month running at about 42%, would go from having three seats in parliament to 28. This would give them enough seats in parliament to be only 4 seats shy of a clean majority in the 63-seat parliament, which greatly broadens their possible choices of coalition partners.

Speaking of the ruling coalition, they would not fare as well if elections were held today. The Independence Party would go from 19 seats to 16, which is the same number of seats the party during the nadir of their unpopularity after the 2009 elections. Their partners in the ruling coalition, the Progressive Party, would go from 19 seats to 10. As such, their combined powers would still not be enough to surpass Pirate Party seats.

Where other parties are concerned, both the Social Democrats and the Left-Greens would have six seats in parliament if elections were held today, while they currently have nine and seven seats, respectively. Coming out worst of all in this is Bright Future – currently with six seats, they would have exactly zero seats if elections were held today.

These results show a parliament led by the Pirate Party, who would be able to form a coalition with literally any other party in parliament and have a solid majority. Bear in mind, though, that the next parliamentary elections are not until May 2017.

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