Former Prime Minister and Central Bank chairman and current editor of Morgunblaðið Davíð Oddsson has returned to Iceland, and to his job, after taking a week off due to the release of the Special Investigative Commission’s (SIC) report on the bank collapse of 2008.
As part of an agreement he made with this publishers – an agreement he made publicly known – Oddsson agreed to step down as editor temporarily after the report’s release. Oddsson, in his role as both Central Bank chairman and prime minister, is mentioned and harshly criticized on many occassions throughout the report.
In the interests of impartiality, Oddsson therefore took a leave of absense from the editor’s desk and left the country to parts unknown. He was unreachable during this time, and himself made no comment on the report’s findings.
The report more or less paints Oddsson as a control freak who wielded so much power and inspired so much fear that even the Prime Minister himself – former conservative chairman Geir H. Haarde – was scared of him. Oddsson has yet to comment on the that which the SIC reported.