The political parties has finished their talks and will announce today formally the birth of an new government which consist of the Social Democratic party (S) and the Left-Green movement (VG) but will be backed up by the Progressive party and Liberal party.
The birth will be formally announced 4 PM GMT at Hótel Borg, which is the same place as quite strong protest occurred 31. December 2008. You can see my video report from that protest here:
The new election have been rescheduled and will now be held on 25th of April 2009, which is somewhat early specially because many new movements have been formed during the crises past months. This date will give the little time to organize their election campaign against the old political parties which have their election machines ready and have already start them up.
UPDATE 17:00 GMT : The new government has been announced and the minister list is as follows:
- Prime Minister: Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir (S)
- Minister of Finance, Fisheries and Agriculture: Steingrímur J. Sigfússon (VG)
- Minister for Foreign Affairs, Industry, Energy and Tourism: Össur Skarphéðinsson (S)
- Minister of Health: Ögmundur Jónasson (VG)
- Minister of Education, Science and Culture: Katrín Jakobsdóttir (VG)
- Minister for the Environment: Kolbrún Halldórsdóttir (VG)
- Minister of Justice and Ecclesiastical Affairs: Ragna Árnadóttir (n/a)
- Minister of Business Affairs: Gylfi Magnússon (n/a)
- Minister of Social Affairs and Social Security: Ásta Ragnheiður Jóhannesdóttir (S)
- Minister of Communications: Kristján L. Möller (S)
It's interesting to see that the parties seemed to have heard the voices of the people that they want people outside of the parliament into the government, in this new government there are two ministers which are not in any political party (Marked n/a in the list above).
It's also worth notice that the chairman of the Social Democratic party will not take position in the new government. However, it's mainly because of health reasons but also because her political career has been damaged during the incompatent handling by the former government of the economy crises we are experiencing now.
UPDATE 22:00 GMT : I must say that people are little bit disappointed with the project list of the new government, specially regarding the little emphasis on applying for EU membership.
However the good points are several and they are:
- There will be put on formal ethics rules for ministers and officials in the government offices. Which includes that all ministers and officials need to make public their investment portfolio and other financial oblications which could lead to conflight of interests.
- Laws about responsibility of ministers will be revised.
- The constitution will be changed so it will be easier to request public voting.
- The new government will keep working with the IMF and use their plan to restore the economy.
- The Central Bank of Iceland will be reconstructed and the chairmen and board of directors will be fired. Instead there will be one chairman over the Central Bank which will have right educational and professional background to do the job. Also an monitery committee will be found which will decide interest rates and so on.
- New board of directors will be appointed over the Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA) and foreign experts will be hired to assist FSA to do their job.
- The government will initiate big projects which require alot of workforce.
Hopefully this new government will do their job well and in a transparent way. It's the only way to regain trust from the public of Iceland and to keep the peace on the streets.