“Cat Party” Fails To Win Seat On Akureyri Town Council

While a lot of the focus of last Saturday’s municipal elections has been on Reykjavík’s uncertain future, some striking elections results happened in many other towns and villages across Iceland, too.

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Amongst those is in Akureyri, where the final results showed that Kattaframboðið–informally called “the Cat Party” in English–failed to secure enough votes to win a seat on town council.

As reported, this party, lead by artist enfant terrible Snorri Ásmundsson, had but one platform point: reverse the ban on outdoor cats that the town council has been trying to pass. Many of its candidates were expressly running on behalf of their cats because, at least for now, cats are ineligible to vote or run for office.

In the end, voter turnout in Akureyri was 64.1%–slightly better than Reykjavík’s 61.1%–for the 11-seat town council. The Cat Party secured 373 ballots, or 4.1% of those submitted, and while they did do better than the Pirate Party, this would not be enough to win a seat.

As such, cats in Akureyri will need to look to other parties for representation on town council.