ICELAND — The first major victim of the 2008 global financial collapse—isn't in as dire straits as Greece. But that distinction is of scant comfort to people in Reykjavik ahead of Saturday's parliamentary election.
Despite the fact that Iceland's unemployment rate is under 5 percent, voters are expected to send a strong message to the political establishment: The economic data doesn't reflect the ongoing pain, the banks are still skimming far too much off the top and the status quo isn't working.
The government—the first center-left coalition since Iceland gained independence from Denmark in 1944—has earned praise both at home and abroad for averting a total disaster after the banking collapse by imposing controls on outgoing capital flow and attempting to resist deep austerity. It is, nonetheless, expected to give way to a rightwing coalition after the votes are counted and the dust settles. Polls are indicating that the next prime ,inister will come from either the Progressive or Independence Parties—right and center-right parties that ruled Iceland from 1995 until 2007 and oversaw the corrupt banking privatizations that brought the country to the brink of ruin.
Despite the fact that Iceland's unemployment rate is under 5 percent, voters are expected to send a strong message to the political establishment: The economic data doesn't reflect the ongoing pain, the banks are still skimming far too much off the top and the status quo isn't working.
The government—the first center-left coalition since Iceland gained independence from Denmark in 1944—has earned praise both at home and abroad for averting a total disaster after the banking collapse by imposing controls on outgoing capital flow and attempting to resist deep austerity. It is, nonetheless, expected to give way to a rightwing coalition after the votes are counted and the dust settles. Polls are indicating that the next prime ,inister will come from either the Progressive or Independence Parties—right and center-right parties that ruled Iceland from 1995 until 2007 and oversaw the corrupt banking privatizations that brought the country to the brink of ruin.
Read that last sentence again. Sound familiar? Not just in this country do right-wing parties oversee corrupt banking practices that bring the country to the brink of ruin. People here, there, and everywhere else would do well to remember that.
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