The karaoke marathon organised by Björk Guðmundsdóttir to raise signatures on a petition to put Icelandic natural resources in public ownership – and for the government to stop the sale of HS Orka to Magma Energy – far exceeded its goal of 35,000 signatures.
The event, called “The Voice of the People”, was a karaoke marathon which took place at the Nordic House last weekend. Before it began, there were 20,000 signatures on the petition that can be found on orkuaudlindir.is, which calls upon the government to create a public referendum on the ownership of Icelandic natural resources, and also for the government to prevent the sale of HS Orka to Magma Energy.
The karaoke marathon ran Thursday, Friday and Saturday, from 15:00 until midnight. By the end of the second day, 35,000 signatures had already been achieved. At the time of this writing, there are over 46,000 signatures on the petition, representing over 15% of the population of Iceland.
Jón Þórisson, one of the organisers of the event, told Vísir, “[Prime Minister] Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir has said that if 15% of the population called for a referendum, that this would need to be recognised. I don’t see how they could ignore us now.”
Jón also said that every precaution had been taken to ensure that every signature on the petition is genuine. Indeed, anyone signing the petition needs to provide an Icelandic identity number; the authenticity of names and matching identity numbers are all verifiable by the National Registry.
“We’re undecided on when we’re going to quit,” added Jón, saying that they intend to take the karaoke marathon into the countryside this weekend. “We want to get as many as possible onto our list.”
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