Discrepancy Between Leading Party And Mayoral Candidates

A new poll shows one party leading for Reykjavík city council, but a candidate from another party leading for the actual mayorship.

Vísir reports that according to the results of the latest poll, if municipal elections were held today, the Independence Party would win five of Reykjavík city council’s 15 seats. At the same time, the Social Democrats would win four seats, as would Bright Future. The remaining two would be occupied by one councilperson from the Pirates, and another from the Left-Greens.

Of those five parties, only Bright Future and the Left-Greens are seeing their support declining from the last poll, which was taken in March.

Despite the poll results seeming to reflect that most Reykjavík residents want the Independence Party in the mayor’s seat, respondents were of quite a different mind when it came to mayoral candidates themselves.

56.5% want to see Social Democrat Dagur B. Eggertsson become the capital’s next mayor. Although the Independence Party has a slight lead over the Social Dems as a party, only 16% of respondents said they wanted to see the Independence Party mayoral candidate, Halldór Halldórsson, actually lead the city. 8.8% said the same of Bright Future’s Björn Blöndal, while 3.5% chose Sóley Tómasdóttir of the Left-Greens, and 3% said they wanted Halldór Auðar Svansson of the Pirate Party to be the next mayor.