Predicts Hanna Birna Will Return To Parliament

Chairperson of the Independence Party Bjarni Benediktsson believes former Interior Minister Hanna Birna Kristjánsdóttir will return to parliament. He added further that she is free to renew her seat as the party’s vice chairperson at their next national convention.

MBL reports that, in an interview with the magazine Frjáls verslun, Bjarni was asked whether he expects Hanna Birna to return to parliament. She resigned from her post as Interior Minister last November, in the wake of the Leak Scandal, but still has a seat reserved in parliament.

“As far as I know that’s her plan,” Bjarni said. “But who knows? There are regular assessments done of the party and its MPs. There are national conventions and elections. Anything else is just speculation.”

Bjarni would not pass judgement on how much the Leak Scandal hurt her public image, although “it obviously didn’t help her.” When asked if he believes her return could spark a strong reaction on social media, he replied, “If a person goes through difficult discussions a few times with conviction in their point of view, you learn that that’s what matters most – not some fear that ‘everything will go nuts’ on the internet.”

As reported, a memo on Nigerian asylum seeker Tony Omos, that was leaked to the press in November 2013, was found to have come from the Ministry of the Interior. Last year, one of Hanna Birna’s assistants, Gísli Freyr Valdórsson, confessed to being the source of the leak. Reports from the Parliamentary Ombudsman showed that, contrary to Hanna Birna’s claims, she had numerous times interfered with police investigations of her ministry. She resigned from her post last November.