Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, Iceland's New President

by Karl Blöndal

When Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson took office as the fifth president of Iceland this summer one of his first official duties was to award the Knight's Cross, one of lceland's highest honors. The recipient was rear admiral Stanley W. Bryant, Commander Iceland Defense Force. Grímsson is a man not averse to photo-opportunities but this affair was somewhat hush-hush. The medal was awarded on a Friday but the event did not hit the news until the following Monday. The lack of publicity came as no surprise, though. Grímsson had until recently been the leader of the socialist People's Alliance, a political party which has made the expulsion of the military in Keflavík a pillar of its platform, and here he was handing out honors to the commander-inched, albeit without having much say in the matter. Throughout the presidential election campaign, Iceland had witnessed the political reinvention of Grímsson but in this instance there was more than a hint of embarrassment.

Grímsson became president following a heated campaign where he maintained a steady lead throughout in spite of a sustained campaign where controversial spells in his career were scrutinized, often tastelessly. At one point, a month before the election, lawyer Jón Steinar Gunnlaugsson, chair of the election supervisory board, resigned because in view of his courtroom dealings with Grímsson as the defendant it would be a "scandal" if he were elected president. During the last week before the election, as polls showed the race becoming tighter, negative newspaper ads paid for by his opponents, and highlighting much the same issues Gunnlaugsson did, seemed to cause a backlash among voters, and, in the minds of some analysts, ensure Grímsson of his victory.

When voters were asked in a University of Iceland poll about the main reason they supported Grímsson, 69% said his skills in dealing with foreign countries were very important. Grímsson has been active in the organization, Parliamentarians for Global Action, which has sponsored international initiatives. Grímsson emphasized the president's role internationally in his campaign.

In the poll 2.3% said negative advertising against Grímsson had made them vote for him. 51.3% of those who saw the ads thought they displayed the truth but 70.5% were of the opinion that they played an abnormal role in the election.

Swift Rise to Power

Had anyone suggested in the summer of 1995 that 12 months hence Grímsson would be president, that person would have been ridiculed. Grímsson has been a controversial politician. Born son of a barber in the remote Vestfjords in 1943, Grímsson studied political science in Manchester, England, finishing a Ph.D. degree in 1970 before returning to Iceland where he taught at the University of Iceland, becoming professor in 1973. He was also in a group of young men who favored more hard-hitting journalism than had been the rule in Iceland, and came to the nation's attention for interviewing higher-ups in Icelandic society, such as the head of the Federal Bank of Iceland, without pulling any punches. In interviews Grímsson still mentions that as a result he became the "only man to have been banned on both radio and television in Iceland."

He tried his hand in the center-left Progressive Party, before embarking on a left wing course which brought him to the People's Alliance where his rise was rapid. He was elected to the Althing, the Icelandic parliament, in 1978 and in 1980 became leader of the party's faction in the Althing. He was not elected to the Althing in the elections in 1983. He nevertheless maintained a high profile within the party, first as the chairman of its executive committee, and then as party chairman from 1987 to 1996. In 1988 he became finance minister, a position he held until 1991.

Although Sigmund, the political cartoonist of Morgunbladid, lceland's largest daily, invariably draws Grímsson being followed by the Ghost of Stalin, he is by no means that far to the left. Grímsson belonged to the liberal arm of the People's Alliance, the successor party to the Socialist Party and the Icelandic Communist Party. One indication that he was at odds with the party he led was a vote at the national congress of the People's Alliance in 1993 on Iceland withdrawing from NATO, a long-standing party goal. Then chairman, Grímsson abstained, describing the resolution thus: "I consider it so simplisticly phrased, and out of step with current events, that I will not vote for it."

In the 1995 parliamentary elections Grímsson's party, with him at the helm, received only 14.3% of the popular vote. It was, therefore, a surprise that when Grímsson declared he was running for president that opinion polls showed him enjoying a decisive lead among decided voters.

Grímsson has often been a man of harsh words but during the campaign voters witnessed a different, more subdued side of him. He traveled ceaselessly around the country with his ever-present wife, Gudrún Katrín Thorbergsdóttir, who was almost given the role of a co-candidate.

Five people declared their candidacy. One, Gudrún Pétursdóttir, head of the fisheries institute of the University of Iceland, withdrew from the race before the election. The other four were Gudrún Agnarsdóttir, who had achieved prominence in Icelandic politics as a member of the Althing for the Women's Alliance, Pétur Kr. Hafstein, judge of the Supreme Court of Iceland, Ásthór Magnússon, a self-made millionaire, whose fortune was of an undisclosed origin, and Grímsson.

Grímsson was regarded by many as a candidate of the left, and Pétursdóttir was among those who criticized his candidacy on the grounds that the presidency should not be occupied by a politician. In countless newspaper articles his critics claimed that as a president he would polarize the nation, and ruin an office which had a primary purpose in serving as a unifying force for Icelanders.

President Finnbogadóttir, and her predecessor, Kristján Eldjárn, an archaeologist, were considered to have a background in the humanities, rather than politics, while Ásgeir Ásgeirsson, who came before them, was a politician.

As to the question whether Grímsson will polarize the nation, in a poll taken a month after the election by the department of social studies at the University of Iceland around 75% of Icelandic voters said they would be very content with him in office, while 11.5% said they would not be content at all.

Out of the Right's Reach

The right, which has not had much luck in presidential elections, was expected to field a candidate but equivocal statements made by prime minister and chairman of the center-right Independence Party, Davíd Oddsson were claimed to have forced some would-be candidates to hold back. For months Oddsson, a dominating force in his party, who created his power base as mayor of Reykjavik, refused to give a clear cut answer to the question whether he was running or not. When he finally let the cat out of the bag, saying he was not running after all, he was criticized for declaring himself so late in the game. Others, who perhaps would have had to overcome the drawback of being unknown, would now be unable to mount a credible campaign.

When Hafstein declared his candidacy he stated that he had consulted Oddsson, among others, and was immediately branded the candidate of the right, a categorization he never managed to elude, in spite of repeated assertions that his candidacy was not party-affiliated.

Grímsson won a decisive victory when Iceland went to the polls June 29. He received 40.9% of the vote, followed by Hafstein with 29.2, Agnarsdóttir with 26%, and Magnússon, who outspent all the other candidates, with 2.6% of the vote.

At Odds With the Prime Minister

Oddsson did not make do with a simple declaration of his intention not to run. In a lengthy interview in the Icelandic daily Morgunbladid he also saw fit to criticize some of those already running. In a thinly veiled attack on Grímsson, who in his campaign said the presidency should be used to push lceland's interests abroad to put the country on the map, the prime minister implied he was aspiring for the double role of traveling salesman and ambassador. "But Iceland has been on the map for a long time, and I do not envision a head of state as a traveling ambassador," said Oddsson.

Grímsson and Oddsson had often locked horns in Icelandic politics On one occasion in 1992, when he was being criticized for using the same advertising agency for his ministry when he was finance minister as for his party's campaign, Grímsson accused Oddsson of having a "heel's nature" for participating in the attack. Oddsson, who at the time was already prime minister, said Grímsson's language was his "pedagogical problem."

Two years later in a heated parliamentary debate on the affair of an employee at Icelandic State Radio, Oddsson said he would never sit as prime minister where Grímsson would give him cover. Oddsson, in an interview, claimed Grímsson had twisted his words, claiming he had lied to the Icelandic people, adding, "this man's argumentation and behavior are so outlandish, one is amazed that he is the chairman of a political party. As far as this man is concerned the limit has been reached."

That Oddsson has not forgotten his verbal skirmishes with Grímsson became evident when the prime minister resorted to arguments of punctuation after the latter had been declared winner, saying that when hailing the president, he would be lauding the office, not the man. A Scandinavian newspaper, covering the election, quoted a news editor at an Icelandic daily that an "ice front" was developing between the two men.

In Iceland the president is a figurehead, and the office is largely ceremonial. The president has to sign bills into law once they have been passed by parliament, and can create a platform for policy-making through speeches, and a president has never refused to sign a bill, yet. The only real political power held by the president is the influence on forming governments. Iceland has a multi-party system where seats in individual constituencies are divided proportionally between parties. Under this system a party rarely achieves a majority, and coalition building is needed. It is incumbent on the president to decide which party leader gets a shot at building a coalition that enjoys a majority in the Althing.

Leaving Office After 16 Years

Grímsson succeeds Vigdís Finnbogadóttir who had been in office for sixteen years or four terms. Finnbogadóttir was the first woman to be elected head of state in the world, and her election in 1980 brought Iceland into the spotlight.

The election of Finnbogadóttir heightened awareness of women's issues in Iceland, and arguably in the world. She came from the world of the stage. She studied French and French literature in Grenoble and at the Sorbonne, specializing in the theater, and from 1972 to 1980 she ran the Reykjavik Civic Theater. Her victory in 1980, running against three men, was by the narrowest of margins, edging the runner-up by only 1.4 percentage points. As is the custom in Iceland when an incumbent president intends to seek re-election after a four year term,

Finnbogadóttir was automatically returned to office without opposition in

1984 and 1992. In 1988, however, she was challenged by a housewife from the Vestmanna Islands, Sigrún Thorsteinsdóttir, who had close ties to the fringe Human Party, and managed to fulfill the requirements for a candidacy. Finnbogadóttir beat her handily, getting 92.3% of the vote, while her opponent received only 5.3%.

When Finnbogadóttir took office in 1980 only 5% of the members of the Althing were female. As she leaves women have reached 25%. Her presidency has seen the rise of the Women's Alliance, an all women's party, which has fielded candidates for the Althing, and held a respectable number of seats. Although it is impossible to show that she influenced these developments directly, it has been suggested that having a woman as president has made Icelanders more ready to accept women in high posts. While in office Finnbogadóttir herself liked to quote a child, who, when approached with the proposition of a man at Bessastadir, the residence of the president, stubbornly replied that the presidency was a woman's job.

That did not seem to be the prevailing view in the election campaign, though, and there seemed to be a sentiment among the electorate that it was time for a man. A supporter of one candidate, Pétur Kr. Hafstein, said as much at a campaign rally, eliciting the only input of Finnbogadóttir into the presidential election.

"This discussion that it is now time to put a man into office makes me angry," she said in an interview with Vera, a feminist magazine. "Some think it is some kind of a compliment for me that a woman should not follow in my footsteps - but I think the discussion only serves the purpose of bringing the whole thing back to square one. If we take the 52 years of the republic [of Iceland], and subtract 16 years, we get 36 years. For sixteen years a woman has held this office, but men for 36. Is it not strange that anyone could think of such nonsense that a woman cannot replace a woman in a job?"

Finnbogadóttir has also devoted her presidency to the environment, making the planting of trees on this barren, windswept island a priority. A devout Francophone after her studies in France, she has traveled extensively abroad, both in her official capacity, and privately. On her travels she has emphasized lceland's cultural heritage, while keeping in mind that the stature of her office can open doors for Icelandic businesses and industries.

After her narrow victory she gained wide acceptance in Iceland, and was only seldom criticized. A controversy arose, though, when Finnbogadóttir went on an official visit to China at the same time she attended and addressed the United Nations' international women's conference last year. A remark she made was viewed by some as accepting the Chinese view that human rights depend on cultural differences, rather than being universal. The ensuing media storm is held to have contributed to her decision not to sit for one more term.

Finnbogadóttir has said she will devote her time out of office to youth, women's affairs, and environmental issues.

President Grímsson has not decided on a course radically different from her predecessor's. The last president who was a politician, Ásgeir Ásgeirsson, left office in 1968. Grfmsson has stated that his political career is over, although in his campaign he said he would act if "an unbridgeable gulf were to form between the will of the nation and the will of the Althing."

In an interview published a day before the election Grímsson implied that he did not intend to rock the boat, saying that the Althing is a forum for conflict but "the office of president of Iceland is not such a forum."

It remains to be seen whether Grímsson will politicize the presidency or continue in the tradition molded by his predecessor.

Karl Blöndal is a reporter for the Icelandic daily Morgunbladid. He lived in Boston for seven years, studying political science at the University of Massachusetts- Boston and M.I.T. while also working as a foreign correspondent for Morgunbladid.

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