New Government, Joint Platform Could Be Announced Next Week

Minister of Finance Bjarni Benediktsson (above) says that the new ruling coalition government could be announced after the weekend, Fréttablaðið reports.

Join our High Five Club at either the ‘Secret Handshake’ or ‘Elbow Five’ level, and get an e-copy of The Reykjavík Grapevine magazine emailed to you as soon as it comes out. And if you join before Friday November 12th, you can chat with the Grapevine Team on a Zoom call that afternoon!

This would include not only the announcement that the Leftist-Greens, the Independence Party and the Progressive will continue to comprise the ruling coalition, but also may include which parties have which ministries, who the new ministers are, and what the joint platform entails.

As Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir has recently stated that she believes it would be best to wait until the parliamentary committee investigating the ballot count scandal in the Northwest District reaches a decision on how to proceed, it may also be very likely the committee is nearing its conclusion.

It will be interesting to see the composition of the next government in the wake of these talks, which have been continuing for nearly six weeks since Iceland’s general elections. The election results showed the Leftist-Greens lose three seats since the last elections in 2017; the Independence Party maintaining their seats, and the Progressive Party showing strongest of all, gaining five more seats. Combined, the ruling coalition will have 37 seats in Iceland’s 63-seat Parliament.

As such, it is entirely possible that there may be some changes regarding which parties hold which ministries, and how many.