After meeting with President Guðni Th. Jóhannesson today, Katrín Jakobsdóttir has been given the mandate to form Iceland’s new ruling coalition.
Stundin reports that she will attempt to forge a five-party ruling coalition. This will be comprised of the Left-Greens, the Social Democrats, Bright Future, the Pirate Party and either the Reform Party or the Progressive Party. While she did not expressly rule out trying to work with the Independence Party, the Left-Greens ruled out forming a coalition with them earlier this year.
As the results of the election show, the combined seats of the four parties who are first pick for this coalition total 27 out of a possible 63. The Reform Party won seven seats, but the Progressive lost more than half of theirs in last month’s elections, going from 19 seats to just 8.
As reported, coalition talks between the Independence Party, the Reform Party and Bright Future broke down yesterday, as they could not reach an agreement on a common platform; most notably, regarding the management of fisheries and the question of a public referendum on accession to the European Union.
Bjarni told RÚV after meeting with the president at 17:00 yesterday that he had been hoping for a broader base of support for the coalition, but ultimately this was not tenable.
Reform Party chair Benedikt Jóhannsson said that it had been Bjarni who broke up the talks, who did not want to bend on a number of key issues, and furthermore showed “great interest” in bring the Progressive Party into the proposed coalition.
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