There is an increasing number of parliament members in Iceland deciding against the Icesave-agreement, according to the news source Bloomberg.  34 members are currently expected to vote against the proposition.

If true, the deal is dead.

Go ICELAND!!!  Go, Go, GO!!

Ever since I learnt about confirmation bias I've started seeing it everywhere

So far no news.  The polls close Real Soon Now.


Ever since I learnt about confirmation bias I've started seeing it everywhere

Alright, now let's get this party started. Vísir is reporting this year's turnout as 55,366 voters, or 64.54% of eligible voters. In 2006, it was 54,863 voters, which was 64.8% of eligible voters at that time. So pretty much the same deal. That's kind of a let-down, considering all the fuss every talking head in the city has been making about how the average Reykjavíkingur has had it up to HERE with the same old politics, and they will NOT take this lying down. Well, I guess we'll know soon enough if how the city voted changed in the last four years, even if the numbers didn't.

Right out of the gate, The Best Party is leading strong. RÚV reports that of the 21,017 ballots that have been counted so far, The Best Party has gotten 8,000 of them. Holy damn. But wait - the Independence Party are right on their heels, with 7,000 votes. The Progressives are so far with a comically paltry 13 votes. Thirteen. That's right.

Now before you go dancing in the streets, historian and political analyst Stefán Pálsson made a good point earlier on. He has predicted that the Best Party would start strong, but then slowly sink. This is because, Stefán says, the Leftist-Greens and the Social Democrats are going to have a lot of strike-throughs on their ballots - people crossing out the names of party candidates they don't want to see - and those ballots are always counted last.

Pretty exciting start either way!

1. To help the homes in the country

2. Improve live quality of the less fortunate

3. Stop corruption

4. Equality

5. Increase transparency

6. Effective democracy

7. Drop all debt

8. Free bus rides for students and losers

9. Free dental services for children and losers

10. Free swimming for everyone and free towels

11. Drag those responsible for the economic collapse to court

12. Complete equality of the sexes

13. Listen more to women and old people

Alright, so the different candidates are speaking to the news about what the first numbers mean.

Mayor and Independence Party candidate Hanna Birna Kristjánsdóttir has said that they've received more support than the opinion polls predicted. Social Democrat Dagur Eggertsson said that the Best Party's support shows that the people want change in politics, regardless of their party affiliation.

YAWN. Thank God former Sugarcube, current Ghostigital guy and #2 on the Best Party's list Einar Örn Benediktsson was on hand. He told reporters he hopes for a clean majority, because then the next four years will be a lot of fun. He said most of the candidates in his party have kids and none of them are idiots. And they intend to do away with corruption in the city.

I'm hoping that fighting corruption to Einar Örn will mean a lot of shouting and blowing trumpets. Sure, that might not change anything, really, but hey - couldn't hurt, right?

Note: Apparently the Independence Party ran Reykjavik for decades and have been swinging in and out of control since.  They established a governing motto of "Scratch our backs or take a hike" that the other parties have followed when they got control.  

Ever since I learnt about confirmation bias I've started seeing it everywhere

OK, just a couple of things to point out here.

First of all, the first figures, you may have noticed, are in nice round thousands. This was not some incredible coincidence, but rather because the "first numbers" counting is extremely roughly shod. It's basically guesstimation mixed with rounding out numbers mixed with reading goat entrails. Having said that, historically speaking, the first numbers don't usually deviate too drastically from the final outcome, but you may have noticed that this year is a bit different. So maybe there'll be surprises.

Also, RÚV appears to be having some serious technical difficulties right now. Their website doesn't even load half the time, and their extra special super Elections 2010 page looks like this:

This is the state broadcasting system we're talking about here. When their page does load, they're reporting that there've been a lot of cross-throughs on ballots, and that newer figures probably won't be up until about one in the morning.

Or in 'bout an hour and a half.

Ever since I learnt about confirmation bias I've started seeing it everywhere

New numbers are in from Reykjavík.

43,408 ballots of about 55,000 have been counted. The Best Party still has six seats, with 16,054 votes, and the Independence Party still has five, with 11,990, but the Social Democrats took a hit, and now have three seats and 8,054 votes. The Leftist-Greens have one seat, and 2,952 votes. Still no other parties in, and there likely won't be. The Liberal Party can be declared legally dead in Reykjavík, and the Progressives have been shown the door.

Still seeing a Best Party/Social Dem thing happen here. It's been brought up though that Jón Gnarr has been supportive of conservative politicians in the past, so really anything can happen I guess.

In any event, Leftist-Green MP Árni Þór Sigurðsson had some interesting things to say about these elections, writing on his blog:

"I can make no mistake that political parties need to examine themselves, and review their works and their platforms. I've noticed that some politicians have taken these results so far to be a victory or even an amazing performance. I think it would be a better idea for party representatives in certain municipalities and in the countryside to show humility in the face of the judgement of the people, and simply admit that these results are a call to a change in emphasis and performance."

The Best Party (Besti flokkurinn), a new political party founded by comedian Jón Gnarr, won the municipal election in Reykjavík yesterday with six representatives on the City Council and 34.7 percent of votes.

Only 660 votes separated the Best Party and the Independence Party of Mayor Hanna Birna Kristjánsdóttir, which earned five seats on the council with 33.6 percent of votes, visir.is reports.

The Social Democrats earned three seats on the council and the Left-Greens one. Other parties didn't receive enough votes to secure them representatives on the council. The counting of ballots ended shortly before 4 am last night.

A UK footnote.....

UK Monster Raving Loony Party

I well remember hearing a spokesman on the radio after they had amazingly won a seat in a local government election. The serious BBC man asked him:

"And what does this success mean for your party?"

to which he replied

"We've lost all credibility!"

15:28: The final results of Reykjavík city elections are in. Of a possible 15
seats on city council, Jón Gnarr's Best Party has won six, the
Independence Party won five, the Social Democrats won three, and the
Leftist-Greens won one.

There was only a difference of 660 votes between the conservatives and
Best Party, but this gave the latter the edge to get an extra man in. At
the moment, the Best Party is currently in a meeting to decide what the
next step is going to be.

Former mayor Hanna Birna Kristjándóttir was more than happy to point out
the victories her party made in well-established conservative
strongholds throughout the country, although the party took its shares
of damages as well, such as in Reykjavík. The Social Democrats also got
hit pretty hard, nationally speaking. The Leftist-Greens more or less
held onto their own, but lost a seat in the capital. The Progressives
fared worst of all in the capital area, only managing to get one of
theirs in town council in Kópavogur and Álftanes.

Gnarr isn't yet giving away who he intends to form a majority coalition
with, but has said he's willing to work with everybody. Social Democrat
Dagur B. Eggertsson said that it would be a long shot working with the
Independence Party, and Hanna Birna said that while her party could
conceivably form a coalition with the Social Dems to form a majority,
that wouldn't necessarily be in harmony with the will of the voters.

Talks on forming a majority, or an announcement of what form that
majority will take, are still pending. (PN)

REYKJAVIK--Voters here blew a loud raspberry at Iceland's political establishment Saturday, handing victory in the capital's municipal elections to an upstart political party that ran a blatantly satirical, humor-based campaign.

After promising a polar bear for the Reykjavik zoo and making other unorthodox proposals, the six-month-old Best Party won 34.7% of the vote, securing six of the 15 seats on the city council. It was closely followed by the Independent Party--the traditional powerhouse in the city--with 33.6% of votes and five seats. The Social Democratic Alliance, which currently governs Iceland in coalition with the Left-Green Movement, won three seats while its coalition partner was left with one.

The win for the Best Party--whose slogan loosely translates to "Whatever Works!"--puts its leader Jon Gnarr, Iceland's best-known comedian, in a strong position to become mayor of Reykjavik, a post that is sometimes a launching pad for national politics. Although the Bests are two seats short of an absolute majority, longstanding enmity among the other parties will make it hard for them to agree on an alternative candidate.

Gnarr said he had not yet decided who to work with on the new council.

"The ball's in our court, I'm just going to have a good look at it and contemplate it and then do something beautiful with it," he told RUV.

"Nobody needs to be frightened of the Best Party because it's the best. And we only want what is best - if we didn't, we'd be called the Worst Party or the Bad Party."

Reykjavik Grapevine |  Best Party and Social Democrats in Coalition Talks .

The Best Party and the Social Democrats are currently in talks over the formation of a new majority coalition for Reykjavík city hall.

After announcing a "secret meeting" on their Facebook page, the Best Party later announced they decided at this meeting to enter into coalition talks with the Social Democrats. Vísir reports, however, that Dagur B. Eggertsson - who led the list for the Social Democrats running for city council - has not seen the HBO television series The Wire. Having seen The Wire has been one of Best Party chairman Jón Gnarr's conditions for forming a coalition with anybody, but he told reporters that Dagur is excused, because his not seeing The Wire had been beyond his control.

It should also be noted that Jón Gnarr has set as a condition of a coalition that he become mayor.

So he's going to go through with it.

Iceland Weather Report | Dissecting the Best Party's appeal.

The success of the Best Party is simply hard to pin down. Part of their appeal is the postmodern irony they suddenly bring to the political arena, which is just perfect for highlighting the vacuousness of the traditional political slogans. By promising the people things they will never be able to follow through on, like a toll booth on Seltjarnarnes [affluent Reykjavík suburb] and a white-collar prison [see here], they really bring into sharp focus the absurdity of many of the traditional political promises. They've shaken things up, made people think. And that is good.

Jón Gnarr is a chapter unto himself.

As I mentioned in the last post he has seemed completely bemused by the Best Party's success, although with him it's always hard to know if he's acting or not. What has been particularly refreshing, however, is his lack of political showmanship, and this, too, has suddenly brought the absurdity of the other politicians into focus. Yesterday, for instance, while I was watching an interview with all the heads of the political parties on [political talk show] Silfur Egils I found myself cringing bigtime when ex-mayor Hanna Birna Kristjánsdóttir started rattling off her artful commentary immediately after Jón Gnarr's evident confusion: everything she said seemed completely insincere, like a well-rehearsed act that was suddenly tremendously suspect.
In other words, through its alleged "political farce" the Best Party manages to turn things on their heads: Things we previously considered serious now seem ridiculous, phrases or slogans that we previously took at face value are suddenly called into question, and the whole political arena suddenly seems like a joke. All those things we previously attributed to the Best Party [farce, performance, joke, etc.] has somehow become transposed onto its surroundings, and the things it stands for suddenly seem [reasonably] sane.

Should be noted the author, Alda Sigmundsdóttir, was not a Best Party supporter.

Ever since I learnt about confirmation bias I've started seeing it everywhere

The Best Party and the Social Democrats are still in negotiations about a new majority for city hall, and are still hammering out the fine points of what issues they plan to address, how, and in what order (with the help of Reykjavík residents, via the website betrireykjavik.is.)  

Both parties are reporting that so far negotiations are going well. In fact, Gnarr has been serious enough about working with the Social Democrats to give Social Dem councilman Dagur B. Eggertsson a copy of the HBO television series The Wire. As Gnarr told the Grapevine, he was only considering partnerships with those who have seen the series, which goes into great detail about corruption within Baltimore city hall. Gnarr's emphasis has become so popular that the retail chain Hagkaup is now advertising the DVD set of The Wire with the slogan "The television series that The Best Party recommends."