The President of Iceland, Gudni Johannesson, has emerged as the winner of the country’s recently held presidential elections securing a second term in office in a landslide victory that saw him claim victory with 92% of total votes cast.
According to the final results released on Sunday, the former history professor earned another four-year term in the second elections to be held by a European country following the ease of lockdown restrictions in the region. Johannesson who scored 92.2 per cent of the 169,821 votes cast, was up against main opposition rival and rightwing candidate, Gudmundur Franklin Jonsson.
Speaking to the Associated Foreign Press in Reykjavik on election night, Johannesson revealed that he felt “honoured and proud” to have another shot at leadership. “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,” he said.
The second-highest margin in Iceland’s history coming right after Vigdis Finnbogadottir, the first woman in the world to be democratically elected as head of state, who holds the record, winning re-election in 1988 with 94.6 per cent of the vote.
Johannesson’s win had been predicted months earlier by opinion polls carried out in the country. A poll conducted and published by Gallup in early June showed that nine out of ten Icelanders (90.4%) would vote Johannesson in for a second term as President. Johannesson’s only opponent, Jonsson, was supported by 9.6% of respondents.
Reacting to the election result, Jonsson who is a former Wall Street broker and a vocal fan of US President Donald Trump, conceded his loss in Iceland, telling public broadcaster: “I send my congratulations to Gudni and his family.”
Turnout for Saturday’s vote was 66.9 per cent, dropping from 75.7 per cent during Johannesson’s first election victory in 2016 when he became the youngest president of Iceland since independence in 1944. While there are no term limits, Johannesson has said he would limit himself to two or three terms at the most.
