Iceland’s President Gudni Johannesson won a landslide election on Sunday, according to partial results, after the European country became the second to hold polls since coronavirus lockdowns were lifted.
Since suffering spectacular bank failures in 2008, the volcanic North Atlantic island of 365,000 inhabitants has recovered some economic and political stability, which has worked in the 52-year-old president’s favour.
Early results late Saturday suggested Johannesson had secured a second four-year mandate with 90 percent of the votes, seeing off a challenge from rightwinger Gudmundur Franklin Jonsson.
“I am honoured and proud,” the president told AFP from his election night headquarters at Reykjavik’s Grand Hotel. “This result of this election is, to me, proof of the fact that my fellow Icelanders… have approved of how I have approached this office.”
Opinion polls had predicted Jonsson had little chance of winning the support of the country, which has 252,217 eligible voters.
Read more via AFP/France 24
