IFES Election Guide - Country Profile: Iceland

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Region

Iceland
Republic of Iceland
Region: Europe

Description of government structure:

Chief of State: President Olafur Ragnar GRIMSSON
Head of Government: Prime Minister Johanna SIGURDARDOTTIR
Assembly: Iceland has a unicameral Parliament (Althing) with 63 seats.

Description of electoral system:

The President is elected by plurality vote to serve a 4-year term.
The Prime Minister is appointed by the president with the approval of the parliament.
In the Parliament (Althing), 54 members are elected through an open-list proportional representation system to serve 4-year terms and 9 members are elected by open list proportional representation in multi-member constituencies to serve 4-year terms.***

*** There are six multi-member districts. Each of nine compensatory seats is assigned by the election commission to corresponds to a multi-member district. These seats are awarded to parties from the same open lists in order to make the parties' overall seat shares proportional to their national vote shares. Parties must clear a 5 percent threshold to win these compensatory seats.