Despite having received a formal mandate from the President of Iceland on Friday to head negotiations on the formation of a coalition government, the Pirate party has yet to call a meeting with other parties, the local news site visir.is reports. Instead, the party has spent the weekend meeting internally to go over the issues which are likely to come up during the negotiations. The chairman of the conservative Independence party told reporters he wants to take another stab at forming a center-right government, but that he expected the outcome of future negotiations between the parties could just as well be new elections.
Read more: Report: Pirates get mandate to form new government, won't demand Prime Minister's office
Birgitta Jónsdóttir, the leader of the Pirate party, told the local radio station Bylgjan that she stood ready to head negotiations, and that she stood ready with the ingredients for a fabulous coalition. She stressed that the differences of the five parties of the center and left should not be seen as dooming the negotiations, but a source of strength: What I find most promising in the negotiations of the five parties, who are all very different, is that they all have their strengths. All the parties focus on different things, and if we can draw out the best in each we will have a great coalition government.
Katrín Jakobsdóttir, the chairwoman of the Left-green movement, who had previously attempted and failed to form a five party center left coalition, had argued that the parties were not only facing differences over policy, but also cultural differences.
Read more: The stalemate in Icelandic politics: What' going on and why is there no coalition in sight?
Bjarni Benediktsson, the chairman of the conservative Independence party told visir.is that he still wanted to find common ground between the conservatives and the two centrist parties. Bjarni has already made several failed attempts at finding this common ground. A center-right coalition would only have a one MP majority in parliament, which pundits believe will be an unworkably small majority.
Despite having received a formal mandate from the President of Iceland on Friday to head negotiations on the formation of a coalition government, the Pirate party has yet to call a meeting with other parties, the local news site visir.is reports. Instead, the party has spent the weekend meeting internally to go over the issues which are likely to come up during the negotiations. The chairman of the conservative Independence party told reporters he wants to take another stab at forming a center-right government, but that he expected the outcome of future negotiations between the parties could just as well be new elections.
Read more: Report: Pirates get mandate to form new government, won't demand Prime Minister's office
Birgitta Jónsdóttir, the leader of the Pirate party, told the local radio station Bylgjan that she stood ready to head negotiations, and that she stood ready with the ingredients for a fabulous coalition. She stressed that the differences of the five parties of the center and left should not be seen as dooming the negotiations, but a source of strength: What I find most promising in the negotiations of the five parties, who are all very different, is that they all have their strengths. All the parties focus on different things, and if we can draw out the best in each we will have a great coalition government.
Katrín Jakobsdóttir, the chairwoman of the Left-green movement, who had previously attempted and failed to form a five party center left coalition, had argued that the parties were not only facing differences over policy, but also cultural differences.
Read more: The stalemate in Icelandic politics: What' going on and why is there no coalition in sight?
Bjarni Benediktsson, the chairman of the conservative Independence party told visir.is that he still wanted to find common ground between the conservatives and the two centrist parties. Bjarni has already made several failed attempts at finding this common ground. A center-right coalition would only have a one MP majority in parliament, which pundits believe will be an unworkably small majority.
