Economy a focus as Iceland votes
REYKJAVIK, Iceland - Idle building cranes and empty shop windows reminded Icelandic voters of their country's economic calamity yesterday as they voted for a new parliament.
REYKJAVIK, Iceland - Idle building cranes and empty shop windows reminded Icelandic voters of their country's economic calamity yesterday as they voted for a new parliament.
Opinion surveys and interviews with voters suggest they plan to turn to the left and punish the pro-business leaders who brought the country to ruin.
The economic crisis gripping this volcanic island in the middle of the Atlantic just south of the Arctic Circle has emerged as the key issue.
"We have been kicked so badly that I simply don't trust anyone anymore," said taxi driver Sigurdur Gudjonsson, who has not found a party he can back.
He is not alone in the undecided and disgruntled category. Polls last week indicated that 8.5 percent of voters intend to turn in blank ballots as a protest.
The battered country has a new catchphrase: "It's so 2007." It's said with wistful nostalgia for the blissful boom days just two years ago when credit-rich Icelanders did not know what lay ahead.
That was before the collapse of the banking sector last fall left the country swamped with debts. Unemployment is soaring as the value of the currency, the krona, sinks.
Inflation has spiraled, and the International Monetary Fund has predicted that the economy will shrink about 10 percent in 2009, which would be Iceland's biggest slump since it won full independence from Denmark in 1944.
The mood is grim. Jobs have been lost, as well as homes, and families are feeling the burden of skyrocketing loan payments. Some had loans in foreign currencies that have turned extremely unfavorable as the krona declines.
College students are being hit hard as vital summer jobs are hard to come by. Usually, almost all Icelandic students work during their summer holidays to help raise tuition money.
All this turmoil translates to widespread anger at the politicians who were in charge when things turned bad. Polls taken in the final days leading up to the vote showed a substantial drop in support for the conservative, pro-business Independence Party, which headed a coalition government last fall when the banking system failed.
Instead, voters seem to be turning to left-wing parties and to new parties forged after the crisis hit.
The early election was called by the left-of-center caretaker government, which took office in February after public protests toppled the Independence Party.
Voters are expected to endorse the parties in the caretaker government - an alliance of Social Democrats and Left-Greens led by interim Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir - turning their minority coalition into a majority in Iceland's parliament, the Althing.
"I simply cannot reward the people who have led this country into ruin," said voter Svanborg Egilsdottir, a midwife. "The ballot is the only method I have to influence the situation, however slight the influence may be."
Final results are expected today.
