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Reykjavik / AFP
Iceland began voting in a presidential election Saturday, two months after the Panama Papers scandal tainted part of the political elite, with newcomer Gudni Johannesson seen clinching an easy victory.
Polling stations opened at 0900 GMT, with 245,000 Icelanders eligible to cast ballots. Polls were to close at 2200 GMT, with the first results expected shortly afterwards.
Johannesson, a 47-year-old history professor and political commentator who has never held public office, only decided to run after the Panama Papers leak in April detailing offshore accounts implicated several senior Icelandic politicians, including the prime minister who was forced to resign. Johannesson has vowed to restore Icelanders’ faith in the system after years of public anger toward politicians for miring the country in scandals and financial woes.
But while outraged Icelanders massed in the streets for days in April calling for the prime minister’s ouster, that anger appeared to have dissipated somewhat with the final days of campaigning overshadowed by euphoria after the Icelandic football squad achieved a historic feat at the Euro 2016 football tournament. A North Atlantic island of just 334,000 people, Iceland beat Austria 2-1 on Wednesday to qualify for the last 16 in the country’s Euro debut, facing off against England on Monday.