Icelanders vote for woman

Press, 22 July 1980, Page 16

Icelanders vote for woman

Front the “Economist”

Iceland’s voters are liberated. On June 29 they voted in Miss Vigdis Finnbogadottir as the world’s, first popularly elected woman president. Both Bolivia’s outgoing president, Mrs Lidia Gueiler, a: d Argentina’s Mrs Isabella Peron came to office indirectly. The world’s other female heads of state, since Cleopatra’s time, have been monarchs.

Miss Finnbogadottir won the election by a nose, polling 33 per cent against the 32 per cent that went to the nearest of three male rivals. In the past Iceland has preferred to have presidents who represented more of a national consensus. Miss Finnbo.gadottir’s politics may also be divisive. She has previously espoused some far-Left policies — including opposition to N.A.T.O.’s use of the Keflavik airbase.

Iceland’s president usually stays above the political battle. The government, is based on the Prime Minister’s control of a majority in parliament, and so long as there is such a majority the President has hardly any political role. But only five

months ago, President Kristjan Eldjarn was warning the party leaders that he would point a non-party government if they took much longer to form a new coalition. After that warning, the long political vacuum that had followed last December’s general election was soon brought to an end when Mr Gunnar Thoroddsen’s present coalition was formed. The main parties in the government are the middle-of-the-road Progressive party and the far-Left People’s Alliance. Most of the Right-of-centre Independence party, of which Mr Thoroddsen was vice-chairman, went into opposition alongside the Social Democrats.

If this uneasy and precarious coalition breaks up, or loses its slender majority, the ball could end up in the presidential lap'again. Some Icelanders fear that this week’s presidential election may be remembered not as a blow for sex equality but as having added to the in? stability that now plagues their little country’s politics.