Democracy assitance & elections news from the Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening (CEPPS)
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Election Profile:

Flag of Iceland Source for election date

At stake in this election:

  • 63 seats in the Parliament (Althing)

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 simple majority vote to serve a 4-year term.
  • 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 mult-member districts. Each compensatory seat 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.

Main parties in the electoral race:

** The Social Democratic Alliance (SDA) includes the People's Alliance (PA), the Social Democratic Party (SDP), and the Women's List.

Population and number of registered voters:

  • Population: 306,694 (July 2009 est.)
  • Registered Voters: 227,889 (April 2009 )

Last Updated on 09/02/2008

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