Iceland is again facing a crisis as coalition partners abandoned the Independence Party-led government over a scandal involving the prime minister’s father.
The four-lawmaker Bright Future party announced late on Thursday in Reykjavik that it was leaving the three-party coalition less than a year after it was formed. Hours later, the Reform Party, which has eight legislators, called for new elections as soon as possible.
The coalition led by Prime Minister Bjarni Benediktsson’s Independence Party has only a one-seat majority in parliament, and was cobbled together earlier this year after long negotiations. Iceland now faces its second snap election in a year after the previous government unraveled when then Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson became the most high-profile casualtyof the so-called Panama Papers.
The Bright Future party accused the premier of committing a “breach of trust” after failing to inform the rest of the government that his father had written a letter vouching for the character of a convicted child molester so he could apply for a legal “clean slate.” The issue has been much in the news in Iceland, where convicted pedophiles can apply to have their record expunged.
“That goes against our policies here at Bright Future on transparency and a good way of working,” said Ottarr Proppe, head of the Bright Future party.
Protests were called for Friday in Reykjavik, which has seen raucous street demonstrations both after the country’s economic collapse in 2008 and during the Panama Paper’s scandal last year. Benediktsson’s name also surfaced in the Panama Papers, but he said he had previously disclosed his offshore holdings.
Read more on Iceland’s previous election here
“Iceland’s Jimmy Savile case: Our PM, who was in the Panama Papers, has hidden for two months his father’s support for a pedophiles clemency,” Smari MacCarthy, a Pirate Party member of parliament, said on Twitter. The party surged in 2016’s election, winning 14.5 percent of the vote and 10 seats in parliament.
The turmoil has surfaced just as the coalition was presenting the budget to parliament. Iceland’s economy is booming after the government earlier this year dismantled the last of the capital controls that had been in place since 2008.
The Independence Party hadn’t issued any statements as of 5 a. The prime minister’s office didn’t immediately respond to calls for comment outside normal business hours.
The current coalition was formed in January after two months of negotiations as the Independence Party, which resisted a challenge from the populist Pirate Party to win the most votes in an Oct. 29 snap elections, replaced its traditional coalition party, the Progressive Party, with the two new junior allies. It controls 32 seats in the 63-member parliament.
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