After resignation: Iceland’s Foreign Minister Benediktsson takes over government

After resignation
Iceland’s Foreign Minister Benediktsson takes over government

Iceland’s Foreign Minister Bjarni Benediktsson will become the country’s new Prime Minister. Benediktsson himself announced this at a press conference broadcast on Icelandic television. The incumbent Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdóttir announced her resignation on Friday. Benediktsson comes from the conservative Independence Party. In Jakobsdóttir’s previous cabinet he was Minister of Finance. Benediktsson was also Prime Minister once – from January to November 2017, right before Jakobsdóttir took office.

Benediktsson’s government collapsed due to a scandal. His father had spoken out in favor of expunging the criminal record of a man convicted of sexually abusing a minor.

Jakobdottirs Resignation results in a castling in the Icelandic coalition government. Benediktsson’s party colleague and current Finance Minister Thórdís Kolbrún Reykfjörd Gylfadóttir will take over the Foreign Ministry, her successor will be Sigurdur Ingi Jóhannsson from the Progress Party. The new government is due to start work after a meeting of the Icelandic State Council on Tuesday evening.

Jakobsdóttir has been Prime Minister of the country, which has a population of 400,000, since 2017. The politician from the Left-Green Movement justified her resignation by saying that she wanted to run for the post of president. The incumbent Icelandic President Gudni Th. Jóhannesson does not want to run for re-election. The presidential election is expected to take place on June 1st. The role of Iceland’s president is largely ceremonial.

dpa