From Iceland — New Party Polls Well

New Party Polls Well

Published February 10, 2012

The newly formed party of former Leftist-Green Lilja Mósesdóttir has received considerably high levels of support, a new poll shows.
As reported, Lilja announced last month that she was forming a political party of her own. While originally in the Leftist-Green Party, Lilja said dismissed the notion that her campaign would split the leftist vote, saying that the terms “left” and “right” were for all intents and purposes “meaningless”. The platform of her new party, Samstaða (Solidarity) does however, advocate primarily leftist ideals such as strengthening the social welfare system, protecting the environment and ensuring egalitarianism.
While only just a few weeks old, Samstaða is already polling in high numbers, Vísir reports. According to a poll conducted by Fréttablaðið and Stöð 2, her party would win 14 seats in parliament if elections were held today.
The poll actually showed a considerable upset for leftists. Iceland’s parliament has 63 seats. If parliamentary elections were held today, the Independence Party would come out on top, going from 16 seats to 24, and would be the largest party in parliament.
Meanwhile, Social Democrats would go from 20 seats to 8, and the Leftist-Greens would go from 12 seats to 5 – the leftist ruling coalition would therefore be defeated.
On other fronts, the Progressives would come out relatively unscathed, going from 9 seats to 8. The Movement would lose all three of their seats, but Guðmundur Steingrímsson’s party, Bright Future, would pick those up, going from one seat to four.

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