Poll: Pirates Second Largest Party; Government Support Falling

The Pirate Party continues their steady ascent, and are now the second largest party in the country, according to a new poll from MMR. Meanwhile, there appears to be some correlation (which is not necessarily causation) between levels of government support and the severity of the coronavirus crisis in Iceland.

As almost always, the Independence Party is the largest party in the country, going from 22.2% to 23.5% from the previous poll, which was taken on May 8th. However, the Pirate Party is second largest, going from 11.6% to 14.6% over the same period.

Where other parties in the ruling coalition are concerned, the coalition-leading Left-Greens went from 11.6% to 10.6% and the Progressive Party went from 9.4% to 6.4%. Combined with the Independence Party’s results, these parties have a total level of support of 40.5%.

However, when asked specifically, “Do you support the ruling coalition?”, 47.5% answered positively. This is down from 54.2% on May 8th and 56.2% on April 7th. Interestingly, Iceland’s peak of active coronavirus infections was on April 5th, and has been declining steadily since then, hinting at a possible causal link between the level of crisis to support for the government.

Where opposition parties are concerned, the Social Democrats went from 12.3% to 13.3%; the Reform Party went from 12.2% to 11.3%; the Centre Party went from 9.7% to 10.8%; and the People’s Party went from 3.9% to 3.6%. Of note is the fact that the Socialist Party, which has not yet run for Parliament but does have a seat on Reykjavík City Council, went from 4.3% to 4.1%.