The Hot Button: Early Elections

The hot button issue of this issue is early elections. However anyone feels about the current government, this is an issue on everyone’s minds. The spectacularly public outing of former Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson’s involvement in offshore tax shelters led to his resignation, and the ruling coalition assured the public there would be early elections. However, “early” elections seems to be a flexible concept. Those who called for an immediate dissolution of Parliament and new elections were ignored, with the ruling coalition putting forward a vague counter-offer of elections “in the autumn.” However, nearly a month after the Panama Papers revelations, we still don’t know when exactly those elections will be, and some Progressives have even hinted that we could be having them in spring 2017 as scheduled. As early elections are amongst the main causes for which public protests have kicked off, we can expect to be hearing a lot about them in the weeks to come.