REYKJAVIK: Iceland’s opposition Social Democrats overtook the governing Independence Party of Prime Minister Bjarni Benediktsson after a snap election prompted by the collapse of his fraught coalition government, public broadcaster RUV reported Sunday.
With all ballots counted, the Social Democratic Alliance led by Kristrun Frostadottir was first with 20.8 percent of the vote.
This meant the party secured 15 seats in Iceland’s 63-seat parliament and more than doubled the support it saw in the last election in 2021, when it obtained 9.9 percent.
“I’m extremely proud of all the work that we’ve done. We obviously see that people want to see changes in the political landscape,” Frostadottir told AFP as results started coming in late Saturday.
Prime Minister Bjarni Benediktsson’s Indepen-dence Party trailed the Social Democrats with 19.4 percent, down from the 24.4 percent it won in 2021, marking the worst result the party had ever recorded.
In third place was the Liberal Reform Party with 15.8 percent.
Benediktsson’s three-party, left-right coalition resigned in October, almost a year before the deadline to hold parliamentary elections.
The coalition of the Independence Party, the Left-Green Movement and the centre-right Progressive Party collapsed over the treatment of immigrants and asylum seekers.
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