Government “on the brink of collapse” – again
For the fourth time in as many years, the government looks set to dissolve and call new elections, as David Austmannsson’s troubled tenure as Prime Minister navigates yet another storm in the Thing. Sources close to the Prime Minister describe him as “frustrated” but “clear eyed about the consequences” if the welfare reform bill fails its next committee reading. With its pension provisions having already provoked a wave of back-bench revolts, now the bill’s cuts to energy benefits have led to further resignations and even the threat of a leadership challenge with the Blue-Green Party. The ructions have undermined an already fragile coalition’s tenuous grip on power, and according to those familiar with the Prime Minister’s thinking: “He thinks they are spending too much political capital and would rather try again after a fresh election.”
But such a gambit would be a bold, even risky move for a government whose approval ratings have yet to rise past 25% following last summer’s riots in Laafjörður. The Blue-Greens rode to power on the back of the weakness of the Left-slate led coalition government but a coalition of the centre with the Progressive Liberals fell apart over regional infrastructure funding. Austmannsson led his party to a second term of office, this time forming a coalition with the Liberal-Conservatives, but instead of the Left or Liberals, it has been those to his right giving him the most trouble. The rapid rise of the National Democratic Front has swamped the once-powerful Catholic Democratic Party and is now eating into the voting base the Blue-Greens have come to depend on. The most recent round of Uni-G polling showed the NDF polling 5% higher than the Blue-Greens – above the margin of error, and an astonishing return for a once-fringe party compared to the dominant parties of the last political decade.
Austmannson is a canny political operator who has survived scandals personal and political. Unanswered questions about his wife’s receipt of funds for unspecified ‘consulting fees’ from energy giant Überolía dominated the last elections, but he turned the relentless attacks on their head with a passionate, tearful defense (that, sharp-eyed legal analysts noted, did not actually deny the specific charges). Immediately on winning re-election, he forced through the infrastructure funding that had brought down his previous government, setting in motion development of the massive new GANAX Cosmodrome that aims to make Græntfjall a major regional space power and sell commercial launch opportunities. But this latest battle is one that has taken a particularly severe toll on the former war hero. Caught between the fiscal demands of his LCA coalition partners and the ageing voter base of his party increasingly drawn to the social conservatism of the NDF, the spat over pensions cuts appears to have taken years out of his political life. In Hvítursalur corridors, the joke has been that the only progress on the bill has been the receding of the Prime Minister’s hairline.
The current dispute concerns cuts made to subsidised rates for heating costs for the elderly and those on benefits, including those who receive the Low Pay Commission’s top-up credit. In a passionate – some would say histrionic – speech on the floor of the Thing, NDF leader Sigjón Þjóðbjörnsson attacked the bill as “robbing our most valued citizens”; NDF attack ads aired during the half-time interval of last week’s Copa Rushmori game against Astidt, showing elderly pensioners shivering in freezing hovels and making prominent reference to the government’s decision to rehouse at taxpayer expense a group of asylum seekers who had burned down the holding camp in which they were being detained for assessment and processing. “Maybe we should burn down our house, the government will buy us a new one,” says a war veteran in the NDF advert. “No, we’re not Muslims, so David Austmannsson doesn’t care about us,” replies his wife.
However lacking in subtlety the NDF’s suspiciously well-funded campaign may be, it has proven markedly effective in destroying the support base of the Catholic Democratics, virtually all of whose voters appear to have been swallowed up by the ‘True Blue Surge’. They are now making serious inroads into Blue-Green voters. Those with a long memory have long resented the NDF for their republicanism, but that stance has been softened under Þjóðbjörnsson, in his past author of scathing constitutional and personal criticisms of the royal family, but who now introduced the conference motion abolishing ‘Clause Four’ of the NDF Charter (which had called for the re-abolition of the monarchy) and wrote an open letter of thanks to the Queen for her embrace of the gay community during the height of Græntfjall’s AIDS crisis.
Despite their recent poll surge, if elections do follow tomorrow’s vote, the NDF have no clear path to entering government. Reviled as racists and fascists by the Left-slate and Progressive Liberals, and as nothing more than common street thugs by the Blue-Greens and Liberal-Conservatives, any power-sharing coalition with the major parties seems untenable, and the collapse in the CDP leaves them with no possible allies. But having already proven themselves more effective in opposition than the nominal official opposition, the NDF represent a political threat that must be taken increasingly serious to those on left and right alike. Tomorrow’s vote will decide more than the future of heating costs for elderly Græntfjallers: it could determine the political future of the country.
A full page advert in the paper promotes Qardinal’s services for wary Græntfjaller travellers preparing for their visits to Eura
Græntfjall – 3 (1)
Jorgesson; Kristersson(55’ Markusson
), Reynarsson, T. Ernestisson
(45+2’); Ásvaldursson, Bjørnsson, Miansdóttir; Heikkisdóttir
(42’)
Astidt – 1 (0)
Darmen 1–2 Hispinas 
(90+4’); Markusson 
