Are you confused as to why the Independence Party is now topping the polls with 40,3% and adding 11 new members of Althingi if the vote were today?
Don’t be. Voters are illogical, as is evident by this excellent summary from an article in Time. They would even vote for the party which caused the biggest economic downfall worldwide in recent history:
With these acts of legislative sabotage, Republicans tapped into a deep truth about the American people: they hate political squabbling, and they take out their anger on whoever is in charge. So when the Gingrich Republicans carried out a virtual sit-down strike during Clinton’s first two years, the public mood turned nasty. By 1994, trust in government was at an all-time low, which suited the Republicans fine, since their major line of attack against Clinton’s health care plan was that it would empower government. Clintoncare collapsed, Democrats lost Congress, and Republicans learned the secrets of vicious-circle politics: When the parties are polarized, it’s easy to keep anything from getting done. When nothing gets done, people turn against government. When you’re the party out of power and the party that reviles government, you win.
It might have been a politically tactical mistake for the parties on the left to ask for an election in 2009. By taking the helm at this lowest point in Iceland’s history they have put themselves in the firing line, especially the Social Democrats who suffer the biggest damage.
Voters are strange like that. They’d rather blame the fire department than the arsonist if the fire is damaging enough.
And by delaying an IceSave solution, the opposition has cost the country dearly in lost recovery time. But the voters blame the government. That is the nature of the beast. This is fear and confusion at work.
But many of us who agree that this government is a better option than anything with the party which orchestrated the downfall have been really disappointed. Maybe things would be a little bit different if the Social Democratic / Left Green fire department had concentrated on putting out the fires in the bedrooms instead of the wine cellar?
Before the Independence Party has gone through reform and kicked the bad habits that are the fishing lobby and David Oddson’s isolationism, the Independence Party can not be allowed back into government. It would not necessarily be in their best interests to reclaim their seat in government until after the ghosts of the past have been exorcised. When that happens, the Independence Party will have moved significantly towards the spectrum where Social Democrat voters believe their party should be.
The most critical number in the poll for any of the parties, or any new parties which might be on the horizon are the 40% who are undecided. The government should remember that Clinton did win re-election two years later. Most people realised that their frustrations could bring them a Newt Gingrich / Bob Dole double act and weren’t quite so keen on that one. But Iceland can not afford a repeat of what happened in 2000 in the US. The long term consequences of an unreformed Independence Party in government could be catastrophic.
Related posts:
Police suspect that someone set the old fishmeal factory in Sandgerdi, in Iceland’s southwestern region of Sudurnes, on fire on Tuesday night. The source of the fire remains unknown but police have ruled out common fire starters, such as electricity. 
The Sudurnes police department on the Reykjanes peninsula in southwest Iceland is currently investigating recent arsons in the jurisdiction, suspecting that an arsonist is on the loose. No one had been arrested because of the arsons yesterday.