Social Democrats win Iceland’s snap elections as incumbents punished
Al Jazeera
Social Democratic Alliance wins the largest share of votes but will need to form a coalition to govern.
Iceland’s centre-left Social Democratic Alliance has won the most votes in snap elections prompted by the collapse of the coalition in power for the past seven years, the final count shows.
The Social Democrats won 15 seats in the 63-seat parliament, the Althingi, with 20.8 percent of the votes, state broadcaster RUV reported on Sunday.
The conservative Independence Party, which led the outgoing government, won 14 seats with a 19.4 percent vote share, and the centrist Liberal Reform Party won 11 seats and 15.8 percent of the votes. Three other parties also won seats.
Icelanders voted on Saturday after disagreements over immigration, energy policy and the economy forced Prime Minister Bjarni Benediktsson to pull the plug on his coalition government and call early elections.
This weekend’s results more than doubled the share the Social Democrats won in the previous election in 2021.
