AKEL on the result of the elections in Iceland
AKEL C.C. Press Office, 30th October 2017, Nicosia
AKEL, in a message it sent yesterday, congratulated the Left-Green Movement of Iceland and its President Katrín Jakobsdóttir on the Movement’s gains in the general elections, which have led to the ousting of the right-wing majority governing the country in recent years. The rise of the Movement, which came second, might subsequently offer it the possibility to form a government together with other centre-left parties.
The contribution of the Left-Green Movement to the country’s exit from the economic crisis during the 2009-2013 period projected an alternative progressive exit to the anti-social policies of austerity implemented throughout Europe and in Cyprus. The alternative tackling of the crisis by the then left-wing government of Iceland as regards the banking crisis had three key characteristics: delivering justice with regards the scandal in the banks, distributing the burden of the crisis in a scaled way, with the burden shared first and foremost by the privileged few and then on the rest by focusing on measures for targeting growth and development.
Today Iceland currently records a growth of 7.2%, while unemployment stands just at 2.5%. However most important of all – in contrast to what happened in Cyprus and elsewhere – the burden of the crisis was shifted on the privileged, while the banks were nationalized. Despite the reactions of the IMF and the European Union, Iceland represented an alternative model of managing the crisis.
