Even if the final results are not yet known, there is no longer any doubt that it will be a knockout victory. Icelandic President Gudni Johannesson headed for a triumphant reelection for four years on Saturday with almost 90% of the vote, according to partial results, his only opponent recording his very large defeat.
Surveys in the true
As predicted by the polls, the outgoing head of state, an academic and historian without label, has therefore crushed his populist right-wing adversary, Gudmundur Franklin Jonsson. The president's only rival in this one-round election, the latter congratulated President Johannesson on his victory, saying on public television RUV that he did not expect to exceed 10%. He even admitted that he never really believed during the campaign that he could make a double-digit score.
President Johannesson, who came to vote on a bicycle near Reykjavik, said on Saturday morning that he wanted to “continue on the same path” in the event of re-election. In the parliamentary system of the Nordic island, the head of state has an essentially ceremonial role. It has only one real power, and it is important: a constitutional right to block the enactment of a law and submit it to a referendum.
"The easiest choice in my life to vote"
Johannesson, the youngest president elected since independence in 1944, has enjoyed strong popularity since taking office in 2016. "I think it was the easiest choice in my life to vote. I had decided for a long time, ”said one of her voters, Ragnhildur Gunnlaugsdóttir, 47. "Why change when it's good," says Helga Linnet, another 46-year-old voter. Unlike his predecessor Grimsson, who did not hesitate to fuel partisan controversy, Gudni Johannesson insisted on consensus during his tenure at the presidential residence in Bessastadir.
His only rival struggled to unite with his polemical side. Managing a hotel in Denmark from Iceland, this 56-year-old ex-stockbroker on Wall Street entered politics in 2010 by creating the right-wing populist party Haegri Graenir. In a country where the bulk of power rests on the government and the current left-wing Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir, the opponent Jonsson wanted to make the presidential function more active, for example by using the referendum more.
After Serbia last Sunday, and before Poland and France this Sunday, Iceland is the second country to hold an election since the start of containment measures in Europe. Apart from precautionary measures such as the two-meter distance and hydroalcoholic gels in offices, the epidemic, practically extinct for weeks on the Nordic island, had no impact.
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