The leader of the Icelandic conservative party Bjarni Benediktsson was appointed prime minister on Tuesday April 9, following an agreement by the ruling coalition, his party announced. Her predecessor, Katrin Jakobsdottir, 48, announced her resignation on Friday to run for president in the June 1 election. She has been at the head of the coalition since 2017.
“The government wants political stability,” the Independence Party said in a statement announcing Benediktsson’s appointment as prime minister. The party “wished not to let Katrin Jakobsdottir’s withdrawal from the government disrupt political life.”
Mr Benediktsson had been foreign minister since October 2023 after serving as finance minister from 2017 to 2023, and prime minister from January to November 2017. The 54-year-old political leader is also a controversial figure. He has been named in several scandals including the Panama Papers, a tax evasion and money laundering scandal that broke out in 2016. He was also accused of embezzlement during the financial crisis in Iceland in 2008.
Mr. Benediktsson, whose Independence Party is the largest party in Parliament with sixteen positions, said that the coalition of three parties from the left and the right would maintain the priorities of immigration, education, employment and the energy transition.
Current finance minister Thordis Gylfadottir, also from the Independence Party, returned to the post of foreign minister she had held from 2021 to 2023, while Sigurdur Ingi Johannsson, from the Progress Party, becomes minister finances.
