In late January, I was quite pleased to see Johanna Sigurdardottir (pictured) appointed interim Prime Minister of Iceland. As such, Sigurdardottir became the world's first openly lesbian national head of government. (The first openly gay world leader was Per-Kristian Foss who served as interim Prime Minister in Norway very briefly in 2002.)Iceland's conservative-led government had just collapsed, partly as a result of problems caused by the failure of that country's banks in the recent credit crisis.
Sigurdardottir led her Social Democratic Party into elections this past weekend and, together with her coalition partners, achieved an absolute majority, a first for a left-wing government in Iceland.
"Our time has come!" said Sigurdardottir, 66, who will lead a coalition with the Left-Green party.
Her victory is seen as a return to left-wing policies after almost 18 years of conservative Independent party domination and a sign too that women are going to take a stronger role in running the country. More women than ever before were returned to parliament and Icelandic media claimed that the island’s ancient assembly was now fourth in the world in terms of female participation.
All in all, a wonderful moment in the history of politics.
2 comments:
congrats all around to the first openly gay PM, and to the social democratic party - a real left progressive party.
You know, one day this will not be news or a headliner - it will be accepted without having to think twice. Won't that be nice.
Congrats to her - too bad she's a socialist, but whatever, I wish her luck.
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