The Panama Papers, an enormous trove of leaked documents from a private law firm, have implicated political figures across the world in alleged schemes to avoid taxes and hide assets in tax havens such as Panama. One such figure was Iceland’s Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson. He failed to disclose ownership with his wife of foreign assets and a company that had financial investments in Iceland’s failed banks.
That created a conflict of interest for Sigmundur Davíð in dealing with Iceland’s creditors after the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent bailout. He was elected on a platform of taking a hard line against Iceland’s creditors, but this revelation made him look hypocritical. Sigmundur Davíð then stepped aside without resigning his seat and his party named Sigurður Ingi Jóhannsson as prime minister.
The current governing coalition was already reeling from the blowback of a government secrecy scandal last year regarding European Union membership negotiations, even though the current government and most Icelanders oppose E.U. membership. Soon after winning in 2013, the center-right Progressive Party has suffered severely in the polls. Along with the more right-wing Independence Party, the two-party coalition government has trailed the radical anti-establishment Pirate Party for a straight year. Elections aren’t due until April 2017, but the embattled government just called for early elections in autumn in the face of protests.
So what does this mean for Iceland’s current political landscape and why are these developments important for international politics? The Pirate Party is poised to win power, with far-reaching consequences.
Iceland has seen dramatic political upheaval since the 2008-2009 financial crisis hit harder than any country’s financial crisis in modern history. Mass protests brought down the previous right-leaning government and the subsequent 2009 election gave Iceland its first left-of-center coalition in history. However, the left’s incompetent handling of the painful economic recovery, an International Monetary Fund bailout, and a disastrously unpopular E.U. membership bid made the left government despised. The right won the 2013 elections in a landslide, but now both the right and the left are thoroughly unpopular, paving the way for the Pirates.
A Pirate Party victory would be an unprecedented event in European and global political history. They are part of a multi-national movement borne out of the same Swedish think tank that birthed the digital piracy website The Pirate Bay. Although in many European countries, Pirate parties have become minor protest vote vehicles popular among younger voters, Iceland has stood as an extreme exception. It’s the only country where Pirates have won seats in a national parliament, let alone where they stand a chance at forming the government.
Unlike other prominent European populist movements, the Pirates aren’t far to the left or right and they intentionally eschew the left-right spectrum. Instead of radical socialism like Greece’s Syriza or ultra-nationalist neo-fascism like France’s National Front, the Pirates’ radicalism comes from a commitment to dramatically increased government transparency, the reform of digital copyright laws, open access to digital information, free speech, and citizen involvement in governance through more direct democracy.
Most provocatively, the Pirates have pledged to grant American whistleblower Edward Snowden citizenship and asylum, a move that would certainly anger the United States. Like Bernie Sanders, they have also proposed splitting up investment and commercial banks, as well as reforming Iceland’s drug laws, a universal basic income, and a 35-hour work week.
In contrast to Iceland’s other parties, Pirate members are largely not career politicians as this lengthy exposé on their three parliamentarians details. They have no formal leader, but parliament member Birgitta Jónsdóttir, who previously worked with the hacktivist organization WikiLeaks, serves as their spokesperson and would likely become prime minister should the Pirates win. While they have many internal disagreements over policy and some members even have libertarian or left-anarchist tendencies, their overarching goal is to reform the current procedures of Icelandic democracy and the constitution itself after the last two governments pledged to do so but didn’t.
More than simply upending the current global digital copyright regime, Iceland’s Pirate Party has stood for fundamentally reshaping the role government has in regulating, guarding, and disseminating information. In a country that ranks ahead of the United States in measures of the public’s perception of corruption, the Pirate Party’s popularity is more of a reaction to the established parties’ betrayal of the public’s trust than it is over an economic depression or immigration like in Greece or France. The current government’s implosion over secret financial dealings plays right into the Pirates hands and will likely bolster their support.
Massive protests outside parliament of 10,000 people or more in a country of just 330,000 demanded early elections and the prime minister’s resignation, while the opposition parties are calling for a no-confidence vote. The government called for new elections in autumn, but that might not be enough to satisfy the opposition and protesters who are calling for elections much sooner. Like much of Europe, Icelandic elections are held over a few weeks rather than several months or years like the U.S., meaning they could be held in the next few months.
The latest polling has the Pirates still short of an outright majority thanks to Iceland’s system of proportional representation, where parties generally win seats equivalent to their popular vote share. However, with poll numbers in the high 30s to low 40s and a commanding lead, the Pirates would very likely be able to form the next government if they are willing to enter into a coalition with the opposition center-left Social Democratic Alliance or the left-wing Left-Green Movement. Despite the Pirates’ avoidance of the left-right spectrum, their support for the welfare state and many of their socially liberal positions clearly lean more left than right.
Iceland is a tiny country no larger than a medium-sized American city. However, a Pirate Party government will provide the world with a valuable experiment on government transparency, direct democracy, and digital rights in the internet age, or at worst a cautionary tale. All told, a Pirate Party victory would quite simply be one of the most astounding international election results in modern history. Iceland could be in for a very bumpy ride.