Unpacking The Elections, Again And Again

Ólafur Þ. Harðarson and Bogi Águstsson reflect on a career of calling elections

What were you doing on the evening of November 30? After casting ballots in the parliamentary election, many Icelanders retreated to their homes and switched on their televisions, where two familiar faces would serve as their guides as the ballots were tallied and the results trickled in.

Ólafur Þ. Harðarson and Bogi Águstsson have been the trusted faces of election night broadcasting in Iceland for decades, with the former getting his start on radio in 1983 before transitioning to television to cover the 1986 municipal elections, and the latter being an election night mainstay consistently since 1978. Well, each admits to a brief pause in their respective careers, with Ólafur not covering the 1996 presidential elections when he had endorsed one of the candidates, and Bogi missing the 1987 election when he was working a stint in PR for Icelandair.

Even when accounting for those brief hiatuses, the election night duo has enjoyed significant longevity. “Icelanders have very good taste,” Ólafur quips when asked what it is about them that resonates with television viewers year after year. The more pragmatic Bogi notes that it likely boils down to the fact that he had been on television for some years already and was a familiar face, while Ólafur is Iceland’s foremost academic and researcher on elections, as well as the founder of The Icelandic National Election Study at the University of Iceland.

“We’re kind of inoffensive old men,” Bogi smiles. “Though we weren’t old when we started.”

What happened?

I’m meeting with Ólafur and Bogi to unpack the weekend’s elections and better understand why the chips fell the way they did.

The election saw the Social Democratic Alliance come out on top with 20.8% of the vote to claim 15 seats in Alþingi — nine more than they won in 2021. That party’s leader, Kristrún Frostadóttir, has since been given the mandate to form government and is currently ironing out the details with the leaders of Flokkur fólksins (the People’s Party) and Viðreisn (the Liberal Reform Party).

Most interestingly about the outcome, Ólafur notes, is the near obliterations of the Left-Green Movement — something he largely chalks up to the voters wanting to punish the party for the past seven years in a precarious coalition government.

“Voters who actually would agree with a lot of the party’s policies were saying to themselves, ‘the Left-Greens betrayed us when they formed this coalition with Independence Party,’ and in particular, when [former prime minister] Katrín Jakobsdóttir left and decided to run for president and the Left-Greens made the leader of the Independence Party Bjarni Benediktsson the prime minister — those voters wanted revenge!”

The bigger issue

The Left-Greens managed to secure just 2.3% of the vote this time around, falling short of Iceland’s 5% threshold to secure a supplementary seat in parliament. Also failing to hit that mark were the Socialist Party, the Pirate Party, the Democratic Party, and Responsible Future. Combined, those parties won 22.064 votes — roughly 10.4% of the vote — but they don’t get a single member into parliament.

“That’s 10% of the voters that have been disenfranchised,” Bogi exclaims.

“Some are saying that those furthest to the left are bankrupt in Icelandic politics,” Ólafur explains. “Voters of the Socialist Party, the Pirate Party and the Left-Greens, they share similar views on many of the most important issues. They’re all socially liberal and they’re more environmentally friendly than others. They’re also more positive toward the European Economic Ares and toward Icelandic membership in the European Union, and in agreement on economic points.”

That’s 10% of the voters that have been disenfranchised.

“So in that sense, if they were united in one party, most of the voters could vote for such a party,” Ólafur posits. “They could also make an electoral alliance, which is allowed by electoral law in Iceland.”

An electoral alliance would permit multiple parties to declare their alignment prior to election day, essentially making them a single party with separate candidate lists.

“So, for example, the first list could be xV, the second would be xVV and the third would be xVVV,” Ólafur explains. “And if any of those lists get members elected in the constituencies, then, of course, they will keep those members, but their votes will be joined. So in such an electoral alliance, these left parties would not have gotten zero members for 9.3% of the vote [the percentage won by the Left-Greens, Socialists and Pirates on Nov. 30], they would instead have six members in parliament.”

“So actually the system is depriving the voters of those three parties from obtaining six members in Parliament out of 63 — it is a serious issue.”

Size matters

Aside from the issue of disenfranchisement, there is another aspect of the Icelandic electoral system that the veteran election broadcasters agree on: Iceland’s weighted voting system.

“I find it wrong in our system that how much weight your vote has depends on in which constituency you live,” Bogi notes. “People in the northwest constituency have almost double the amount of votes that we have in Reykjavík, which, of course, we would never accept in a presidential election. So why do we accept that in the parliamentary elections? It means that the rural constituencies have a weight in Parliament which is greater than the number of people that voted.”

While political parties have argued that the proportion of MPs for each party wouldn’t change significantly should all votes be equal, Bogi and Ólafur point out that the bigger issue is representation of differing values between rural candidates and those running in the capital region.

I find it wrong with our system that how much weight your vote has depends on in which constituency you live.

“The number of conservative nationalists in rural areas is 46%. In Reykjavik and in the southwest, the conservative nationalists are just around 26%,” Ólafur explains. “So concerning those issues, it makes a hell of a lot of difference if MPs come from a rural constituency or the capital area — it makes a hell of a lot of difference, even within the same party. Policy wise, people that are socially liberal do not get their views fairly represented in parliament.”

Prior to these most recent elections, Ólafur said there was some will within parliament to at least think about considering equal weighting of votes, but the topic didn’t make it to committee before the government dissolved in October and the snap election was called.

“But my guess — because I’m always an optimist — would be that in the next term we will see some really important changes to the Icelandic electoral system,” Ólafur says.

The dream team

Speaking with them in the bar at Hotel Holt, it is understandable why these “inoffensive old men” have enjoyed such success broadcasting into the homes of Icelanders on election nights. Their chemistry and banter is magnetic, with each bringing something unique to the dynamic.

“We don’t try to upstage each other,” Bogi says. “And we roughly know what the other person is going to say. He knows what I’m going to ask about and I know his answers, but it’s mainly that he’s the expert and I’m the reporter.”

The duo has been through many memorable election nights — from one year when the computer system crashed shortly before going on air, to the 2007 election when the government and opposition were neck and neck the entire night — but their career highlight, Ólafur says, was commenting on an entirely fictional election.

“We got to play ourselves in the TV series Ráðherra,” he recalls, clearly excited by the memory. “And Benedikt, the main character said, ‘we are not going to form a government unless we win handsomely and only if the voter turnout will be over 90%’ — I mean, that was a stupid claim!” He let out another bellowing laugh at the absurdity of the fictitious politician, played by Ólafur Dari Ólafsson.

“I was actually in Paris on holiday and said I can’t go,” Ólafur continues, “but my daughters and my wife said, ‘Ólafur, when you were offered to play in a TV series with Ólafur Dari, you don’t say no!’”

And while both men are now of retirement age, it’s unlikely that either would say “no” if asked to lead another election broadcast.

CORRECTION: The version of this article that appeared in print noted that “The number of conservative nationalists in rural areas is over 40%. In Reykjavik and in the southwest, the conservative nationalists are just around 30%.” Those figures have been updated above.

Revisit the Grapevine’s 2024 election coverage.