Iceland has a new prime minister. Katrín Jacobsdóttir is the charismatic leader of Iceland’s Left-Green Alliance. In elections last October, the 41-year-old led her party, which has a leftist combination of feminism and environmentalism, to a strong second-place finish with a record 16 seats. The governing centre-right Independence Party lost a quarter of its seats but maintained a plurality.
Jacobsdóttir is considered honest and thoughtful, with polls showing that 74 per cent of Icelanders support her as their new premier. The Left-Greens have now replaced the more staid Social Democratic Alliance party as the main force on the Left of Icelandic politics. In December, this mood for change allowed Jacobsdóttir to pull together a coalition government.
