REYKJAVIK: Icelanders voted on Saturday in a snap election that could see the anti-establishment Pirate Party form the next government in the wake of the Panama Papers tax-dodging scandal and lingering anger over the 2008 financial meltdown.
Voters are expected to punish the incumbent coalition after the Panama Papers revealed a global tax evasion scandal that ensnared several senior politicians and forced former Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson to resign.
Although the current government of the conservative Independence Party and the centrist Progressive Party survived the scandal, it promised a snap election six months before the end of its term in spring 2017.
Prime Minister Sigurdur Ingi Johannsson, who is also the chairman of the Progressive Party, was one of the fist people to vote when the polling station opened in the small Icelandic village of Fludir.
“I’m optimistic. We have found for the last days that a lot of people are coming to us,” Johannsson told AFP.
But three separate polls released a day before the vote showed that the Pirate Party, founded in 2012 by activists, anarchists and former hackers, could win up to 21 percent of the vote and the Left-Green movement up to 16.8 percent.
Each of the polls, conducted by the University of Iceland, research company MMR and Gallup, indicate the incumbent conservative coalition government would most likely be voted out.
“We’re losing support (because of the) big anti-establishment (feeling),” Independence Party MP Birgir Armannsson said.
Final election results will be released shortly after polling stations close, but because no party is expected to win a majority, Iceland’s fate will only be known after coalition negotiations.
The latest wave of a global movement against establishment politics, seen in the US with onetime presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, the Five Star Movement in Italy, and the upstart Podemos party in Spain, the Pirate Party could become the Parliament’s second largest group.
“I’m looking for some changes. The system... is not all bad,” said Helgi Mar Gunnarsson, a 54-year-old designer, adding that decision-making should be more transparent.
The people of Iceland should be “more involved,” he told AFP.
The Pirates, who campaign for transparency and the fight against corruption, could form the nation’s second center-left government since Iceland’s independence from Denmark in 1944. The Social Democrats and Greens ruled in a coalition between 2009-2013.
The Pirate Party reached a pre-election agreement with three other leftist and centrist opposition parties, including the Left-Greens, the Social Democrats and the Bright Future Movement, to form a coalition government.
“We think that these parties can cooperate very well ... I think it will be a very feasible governmental choice,” Katrin Jakobsdottir, leader of the Left-Green movement told AFP.
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Iceland’s ‘Pirates’ eye power in snap election
Iceland’s ‘Pirates’ eye power in snap election
Peru Congress to debate impeachment of interim president
LIMA: Peru’s Congress is set to consider Tuesday whether to impeach interim president Jose Jeri, the country’s seventh head of state in 10 years, accused of the irregular hiring of several women in his government.
A motion to oust Jeri, 39, received the backing of dozens of lawmakers on claims of influence peddling, the latest of a series of impeachment bids against him.
The session, set for 10:00 am local time (1500 GMT), is expected to last several hours.
Jeri, in office since October, took over from unpopular leader Dina Boluarte who was ousted by lawmakers amid protests against corruption and a wave of violence linked to organized crime.
Prosecutors said Friday they were opening an investigation into “whether the head of state exercised undue influence” in the government appointments of nine women on his watch.
On Sunday, Jeri told Peruvian TV: “I have not committed any crime.”
Jeri, a onetime leader of Congress himself, was appointed to serve out the remainder of Boluarte’s term, which runs until July, when a new president will take over following elections on April 12.
He is constitutionally barred from seeking election in April.
The alleged improper appointments were revealed by investigative TV program Cuarto Poder, which said five women were given jobs in the president’s office and the environment ministry after visiting with Jeri.
Prosecutors spoke of a total of nine women.
Jeri is also under investigation for alleged “illegal sponsorship of interests” following a secret meeting with a Chinese businessman with commercial ties with the government.
- Institutional crisis -
The speed with which the censure process is being handled has been attributed by some political observers as linked to the upcoming presidential election, which has over 30 candidates tossing their hat into the ring, a record.
The candidate from the right-wing Popular Renewal party, Rafael Lopez Aliaga, who currently leads in polls, has been among the most vocal for Jeri’s ouster.
If successfully impeached, Jeri would cease to exercise his functions and be replaced by the head of parliament as interim president.
But first a new parliamentary president would have to be elected, as the incumbent is acting in an interim capacity.
“It will be difficult to find a replacement with political legitimacy in the current Congress, with evidence of mediocrity and strong suspicion of widespread corruption,” political analyst Augusto Alvarez told AFP.
Peru is experiencing a prolonged political crisis, which has seen it burn through six presidents since 2016, several of them impeached or under investigation for wrongdoing.
It is also gripped by a wave of extortion that has claimed dozens of lives, particularly of bus drivers — some shot at the wheel if their companies refuse to pay protection money.
In two years, the number of extortion cases reported in Peru jumped more than tenfold — from 2,396 to over 25,000 in 2025.
A motion to oust Jeri, 39, received the backing of dozens of lawmakers on claims of influence peddling, the latest of a series of impeachment bids against him.
The session, set for 10:00 am local time (1500 GMT), is expected to last several hours.
Jeri, in office since October, took over from unpopular leader Dina Boluarte who was ousted by lawmakers amid protests against corruption and a wave of violence linked to organized crime.
Prosecutors said Friday they were opening an investigation into “whether the head of state exercised undue influence” in the government appointments of nine women on his watch.
On Sunday, Jeri told Peruvian TV: “I have not committed any crime.”
Jeri, a onetime leader of Congress himself, was appointed to serve out the remainder of Boluarte’s term, which runs until July, when a new president will take over following elections on April 12.
He is constitutionally barred from seeking election in April.
The alleged improper appointments were revealed by investigative TV program Cuarto Poder, which said five women were given jobs in the president’s office and the environment ministry after visiting with Jeri.
Prosecutors spoke of a total of nine women.
Jeri is also under investigation for alleged “illegal sponsorship of interests” following a secret meeting with a Chinese businessman with commercial ties with the government.
- Institutional crisis -
The speed with which the censure process is being handled has been attributed by some political observers as linked to the upcoming presidential election, which has over 30 candidates tossing their hat into the ring, a record.
The candidate from the right-wing Popular Renewal party, Rafael Lopez Aliaga, who currently leads in polls, has been among the most vocal for Jeri’s ouster.
If successfully impeached, Jeri would cease to exercise his functions and be replaced by the head of parliament as interim president.
But first a new parliamentary president would have to be elected, as the incumbent is acting in an interim capacity.
“It will be difficult to find a replacement with political legitimacy in the current Congress, with evidence of mediocrity and strong suspicion of widespread corruption,” political analyst Augusto Alvarez told AFP.
Peru is experiencing a prolonged political crisis, which has seen it burn through six presidents since 2016, several of them impeached or under investigation for wrongdoing.
It is also gripped by a wave of extortion that has claimed dozens of lives, particularly of bus drivers — some shot at the wheel if their companies refuse to pay protection money.
In two years, the number of extortion cases reported in Peru jumped more than tenfold — from 2,396 to over 25,000 in 2025.
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