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Crisis sinks conservatives:

Interim Govt wins Iceland vote

ICELAND: Iceland’s interim leftist government won a resounding victory in this weekend’s general election as voters punished the conservatives they blame for the country’s economic meltdown seven months ago.

The conservative Independence Party, in power for 18 years until it resigned in January amid massive protests over the financial crisis that brought Iceland to the brink of bankruptcy, posted its worst-ever election score.

“We lost this time but we will win again later,” party leader Bjarni Benediktsson said, conceding defeat having garnered just 23.6 percent of votes, far below the conservatives’ previous all-time low of 27 percent in 1987.

Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir of the pro-EU Social Democratic Party will now have to try to reach an agreement with its eurosceptic coalition partner, the Left Green Movement, on European Union membership. The Social Democrats were credited with 30.3 percent of votes and the Left Greens with 21.7 percent, according to official estimates with 90 percent of ballots counted.

Those numbers would give the coalition an absolute majority of 52 percent, a first for a left-wing government. The Independence Party was in power in the early 1990s when the financial markets were deregulated, and has been held accountable for the current crisis which has seen thousands of people lose their jobs and their savings.

Benediktsson admitted he got the voters’ message.

“It has been clear that we have lost trust and we are just beginning to gain that back,” he said.

Iceland was one of the most prosperous countries in the world until late last year, when the global financial crisis led to the collapse of its oversized financial sector and had a devastating impact.

The state had to take control of the country’s three major banks in October, as the local currency, the Icelandic krona, lost 44 percent of its value. Reykjavik, Sunday, AFP

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