At stake in this Referendum:

• Terms of payment to the UK and Netherlands. This is a special referendum called by the President after he declined to sign a regular, respective piece of legislation.

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.

Main provisions in the Referendum:

• Whether to adopt terms set by Parliament on the repayment of debt to Netherlands and the United Kingdom (the "Icesave bill"). Iceland incurred this debt when those governments insured their respective nationals' accounts in Icelandic banks that collapsed in 2008.

Population and number of registered voters:

• Population: 318,041 (2010)
• Registered Voters: 227,896 (March 2009 )

Gender Data:

·         Female Population: 158,651 (2010)

·         Is Iceland a signatory to CEDAW: Yes (24 July 1980)

·         Has Iceland ratified CEDAW: Yes (18 June 1985)

·         Gender Quota: No

·         Female candidates in this election: N/A

·         Number of Female Parliamentarians: 27 (following the 2009 elections)

·         Human Development Index Position: 16 (2014)

·         Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) Categorization: N/A

Disability Data:

·         Is Iceland a signatory to CRPD: Yes (30 March 2007)

·         Has Iceland ratified CRPD: No

·         Population with a disability: 47,706 (est.)