Election Update: Coalition Talks Continue, Result Uncertain

Ten days after Iceland’s general elections, Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir has confirmed that the Left-Greens, the party she chairs, the Independence Party and the Progressive Party are only in talks with one another regarding the formation of Iceland’s next government, RÚV reports.

As reported, the ruling coalition expanded from 33 seats to 37, largely due to the success of the Progressive Party, who saw their seats expand from eight to 13, while the Independence Party held onto their 16 seats and the Leftist-Greens lost one.

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Despite these results, Katrín dismissed the idea that the Progressive should have a greater number of ministerial positions because of them, saying that the results as a whole reflect that the government has being doing a good job.

While she would not speculate on how long these coalition talks will take, as hammering out a joint platform between the three parties could take days or even weeks, the fact that these three parties are only in discussion with one another effectively means that they have every intent of being the continuing government as well.

This also means that, at least for now, other possible configurations of government are currently off the table. As Kjarninn reported, Pirate Party MP Þórhildur Sunna Ævarsdóttir has put forward the idea of a minority government comprised of the Leftist-Greens, the Progressive Party and the Social Democrats, with the support of the Pirates. Such a government would comprise 33 seats—a majority of one in Iceland’s 63-seat Parliament.

This does not appear to be in serious consideration at the time of this writing, but time will yet tell how the current coalition talks proceed.