Polls: Centre Party Keeps Sinking, Progressives Rise Up

The Centre Party, currently in the middle of a political scandal, continue to lose support, while the Progressive Party made gains in a new Gallup poll. Support for every other party remained more or less unchanged from the previous Gallup poll.

Last month, the Centre Party had already fallen from 13% to 8% in the wake of the Klaustur Case, wherein four Centre Party MPs were amongst those recorded speaking abusively about their mostly female colleagues, with these recordings then forwarded to the press by Bára Halldórsdóttir. The Centre Party responded by taking the matter to court, accusing Bára without evidence of having received outside help.

This strategy has apparently not gone well for them in the eyes of the public, as their support is now at 5.7%.

Meanwhile, the Progressive Party has seen a significant rise in support, going from 7% last month to 11.4% today. Interestingly, the Centre Party was formed by Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson (seen above), who was once the chair of the Progressives and Prime Minister of Iceland before the Panama Papers leak compelled him to step down. There is then some reason to believe that Centre Party supporters, already most closely aligned with the Progressives, are returning to the fold.

Where other parties are concerned, the Independence Party remains the largest party in the country, at 22.7%, followed by the Social Democrats, at 18.4%; the Left-Greens at 11.6%; the Pirates and the Reform Party still more or less on even footing at 10.7% and 10.5%, respectively; and the People’s Party—the other party implicated in the Klaustur Case—at 5.3%, all relatively unchanged from the previous poll.