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The current electoral system with six constituencies has been in place since the constitutional amendment in 1999. Prime Minister Bjarni Benediktsson said he had put the issue of voting weights among MPs and equality between parties in parliament on the agenda for today’s presidency meeting.
“My contribution to this discussion, in short, is that today’s constituencies, especially rural ones, are too big. I often feel that people feel that they are too far away from their elected representatives,” Bjarni said in an interview in Reykjavik this afternoon in Bylgjuni.
In rough terms, he thought it was right to split the North-West, North-East and South constituencies into two constituencies in order to bring voters closer to their MPs.
Some of these are so extensive that it would be a difficult task for members of parliament to reach out to voters. In the northeastern constituency, the Eastfjords community believes that Eyjafjörður is so important that it is all-powerful, while in the northwest constituency, the Westfjords community believes that it is in control.
Helping people feel involved is important
Biyani then said he was interested in narrowing the biggest vote gaps between constituencies. The constitution stipulates that votes in one constituency are weighted at most twice as heavily as those in another. MPs have been moved from the Northwest to the Southwest constituencies because the imbalance has grown as the constituency population has grown to those outer limits.
“I want to narrow this gap and balance the weight of votes across the country,” the prime minister said.
“Most importantly, we need to make sure that the electoral system, the constituency structure and the conversations with people are appropriate to create a sense that people feel that participation matters and that they can hold someone to account.”
Disagree with the country as the only constituency
One of the most radical ideas floated for equal vote weighting is to have just one electoral district for the country. Biyani said he does not support such an idea because he believes it would lose touch with the countryside.
“I would like the rural areas to be taken into account. While I think the double weighting of the votes is perfect, I can see that by ensuring better approach to the settlements and at the same time slightly reducing the imbalance of the votes, we can achieve both goals at once,” he said.
When asked about the support of the party leaders for the idea, Biana said he believed there was good harmony between the parties to take care of democratic practices and maintain high voter turnout. However, the ways to achieve the goal are varied.
“The biggest challenge is whether it is possible to bring people together en route,” the minister said.
The bar for presidential candidates is too low
The meeting also discussed possible changes to the presidential constitutional provisions, including the number of signatures required for presidential candidates. Biyani said it was a serious concern that some candidates did not even get the required number of signatures in the election.
“It seems clear to me that the bar is too low,” Biyani said.
He hopes the changes will be approved during this election because otherwise the next presidential election in four years, assuming there is more than one candidate, will likely be held again under the same rules.
“I think we have to take responsibility and make things better,” the prime minister said.
Biyani said he liked the idea of electing the president in two rounds to ensure that whoever is elected will have the support of the majority of voters.
“I won’t do anything that would involve a lot of trouble and effort.”
For a while, the polls looked like three candidates would get more than 20 percent of the vote, but in the election all of them received less than 30 percent. In the end, Halla Thomasdottir won with more than a third of the vote.
“If we get this result, you’ll say: it would be nice to have a second round.”
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