A Nordic Trump's Rise and Fall

June 27: Iceland Presidential Election
Guðni Th. Jóhannesson: 92.2 percent
Guðmundur Franklín Jónsson: 7.8 percent

Elections around the world in recent months have largely centered around the Covid-19 crisis. Not in Iceland. The country has successfully tracked and suppressed the virus. Although the economy is bracing for an impending recession with the collapse of the tourism sector, other parts of life have returned to normal for the cautiously optimistic public. Gone are strict social distancing rules and the need for protective gear like masks or gloves.

In the streets of Reykjavík, the capital that is home to a third of the country’s 360,000 inhabitants, people are back to hanging out in swimming pools and enjoying cool beverages in the sun.

It was against this backdrop that, in June, a populist rabble-rouser tried to toppled the country’s stable president, and failed—for now.

Two candidates ran for president: the incumbent Guðni Th. Jóhannesson, who has held the office since 2016, and Guðmundur Franklín Jónsson, a former stockbroker who declared war on an unnamed elite that ruled Iceland from the shadows.

Iceland’s president has only nominal power. The position has only a few political duties, such as the power to refuse to sign bills from Alþingi, the legislative parliament, which in turn triggers a national referendum.

But Guðmundur Franklín—who like most Icelanders, goes by his first name, even in formal settings—ran on a bid to become a more “active” president who would be more opinionated on parliamentary legislation and send bills that he either didn’t approve of or believed could harm “the common people” to a national referendum. He claimed that there was a corrupt, yet unknowable, elite one percent of Iceland that controlled everything.

His chief charge against the incumbent president centered on the European Union’s controversial “third energy package.” The package included a series of changes to strengthen the internal energy market and decrease the price of energy while improving regulation. It was adopted throughout the European Union in 2009, but was only approved in Iceland last year. (Iceland is in the European Economic Area, but not the European Union.) Reactionary and populist politicians in Iceland claimed that the package would endanger Iceland’s sovereignty by forcing the country to lay expensive power lines to the mainland and export the nation’s cheap and bountiful hydro-electric energy. Guðmundur Franklín further argued that the package should have been put to a national vote.

He also made bombastic campaign promises to take actions generally believed to be well outside the jurisdiction of the presidency. Among them was a promise that as president he would work with a political party to get his own ideas passed through parliament. He also suggested holding a referendum on whether or not the presidency should be more involved in politics, even though a bill to that effect would have to be created and approved by parliament rather than the president.

Throughout the campaign and in the years preceding it, Guðmundur Franklín was a frequent guest on the conservative and racist talk radio station Útvarp Saga. There, he claimed that white, educated and wealthy men are the most hated group in the world and that he had personally been approached by George Soros to help him to shut down all right-wing websites. He also published pictures of himself wearing a red “Make America Great Again” cap and declared his support for Donald Trump.

The incumbent had taken a quieter approach to the presidency. Guðni Th has not encroached on the government’s policy making, although he has frequently encouraged the parliament to put a greater emphasis on environmentalism and protecting vulnerable members of society.

His first term was marked by a stoic approach to matters large and small. Throughout his four years in power, he rarely took political positions. (While Guðmundur Franklín unsuccessfully ran for a seat with right-wing Independence Party in 2016, Guðni Th. has never been publicly affiliated with any political party. )

Instead, he has seemingly reveled in mundanity, and in downplaying the powers of his office. When, for example, in 2017, widespread news reports emerged of his “fundamental opposition” to pineapples on pizza, he confirmed that not only did he not have the power to ban the topping from the baked flatbread, but that he was glad that he did not hold such power.

He has stood back even as Iceland’s parliament has become increasingly divided. In the past few years, the four or five parties who make up the parliament have swelled to eight, including new parties like the populist Center Party, the direct democracy Pirate Party, and the People’s Party, which aims for better conditions for the poor and disabled. The president’s role after an election is to grant one party leader the mandate to form a coalition government, which historically has been simple; the party that could most easily form a government got the mandate. But the decisions have recently been thornier, and many of the parties have been diametrically opposed to working together.

Before turning to politics, Guðni Th. was a docent in history at the University of Iceland, where he wrote about the Cod Wars between Iceland and the United Kingdom in the 1950s. He first gained national prominence in 2016, when then-president Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson refused to dissolve parliament and call for new elections after the Panama Papers revealed that the prime minister at the time, Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, had owned an offshore company with his wife. At the time, Guðni Th. put the president’s surprising actions into historical context as a frequent guest on television talk shows. In repeat appearances, he offered the even-keeled expertise of an academic and emphasized the limited political nature of the presidency. He has maintained that at the time he hadn’t even pondered the idea of running for office; he had a good life, a stable job and had never sought power. But after encouragement from friends and family, he says he decided to put his name in the hat and won. He has been a popular leader ever since.

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Guðni Th. commanded an impressive lead in polls leading up to this election. Still, voters were wary. Conservative or reactionary politicians and parties are notoriously underrepresented in polling projections.

As the election loomed closer, Guðmundur Franklín spoke as if victory was inevitable. "I think it'll go 53/47," he said two days before the election. "I'm going to prepare moving in to Bessastaðir," the presidential manor. Guðni Th. said he would be honored if voters deemed that his past term was worthy of an extension.

In the battle between humility and presumptuousness, the former won out.  Guðni Th. took 92.2 percent of the popular vote. After the first votes had been counted Guðmundur Franklín downplayed the seriousness with which he had campaigned, stressing the importance of the principle that presidents should not get to hold on to their power without challenge.

He said that during the campaign the media had turned against him and that he had been surprised to receive a double-digit result (he had not received a double-digit result).

As in many other places around the world, populism has gained a foothold in Iceland. The movement here is founded on nebulous claims and shrouded with conspiracy theories. The biggest voice in populism is the former Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð, who was ousted from power after the Panama Papers were released. He has maintained that he was a victim of a vicious fake news campaign run by George Soros to stop him from making real change possible. He created his own party, the Center Party, in 2017, and earned ten percent of the vote in parliament in the elections that year

Guðmundur Franklín’s presidential bid was built on the same populist foundation, but did not fare any better. His attempt to politicize the presidency did not tempt Icelandic voters who seem content with their temperate president. It is, however, no guarantee that Icelandic politics will follow the same path. Parliamentary elections are expected to take place in the spring of 2021 where the country’s real political trajectory for the coming four years will be decided. 

The current coalition government enjoys dwindling support, in part because the three parties that make it up have radically different ideologies. Led by the young and progressive prime minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir of the Left-Green Movement, it is backed by the centrist Progressive Party and the right-wing Independence Party. This coalition has forced  unpopular legislation through parliament—including recent legislation which makes it easier for employers to lay off staff during the pandemic—untempered by dissenting voices from the opposition parties, simply by dint of their narrow majority.

The growing perception of a fragmented and ineffectual parliament ruled by special interests has bolstered the appeal of populists. If, in the coming election, the popular vote is split between eight parties in parliament, as it currently is, an outlier like the populist Center Party could end up becoming a kingmaker and forcing their opportunistic and ill-conceived campaign promises onto possible coalition partners and the rest of the country.