Businesswoman Tomasdottir turns into Iceland’s subsequent president | EUROtoday
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Businesswoman Halla Tomasdottir was on Sunday declared the winner of Iceland’s presidential election, last outcomes confirmed, beating former prime minister Katrin Jakobsdottir whom critics mentioned was too political for the publish.
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Jakobsdottir conceded defeat early on Sunday and congratulated Tomasdottir, the CEO of The B Team, a worldwide non-profit co-founded by UK enterprise tycoon Richard Branson to advertise enterprise practices centered on humanity and the local weather.
Iceland’s president holds a largely ceremonial place within the parliamentary republic, appearing as a guarantor of the structure and nationwide unity.
He or she does nevertheless have the facility to veto laws or submit it to a referendum.
Tomasdottir, 55, gained 34.3 % of votes, forward of 48-year-old Jakobsdottir, who garnered 25.5 % after stepping down as prime minister of a left-right authorities in April to run in Saturday’s election.
Tomasdottir, who got here second in an earlier bid for the presidency in 2016, obtained a lot broader help than opinion polls had instructed within the run-up to this 12 months’s vote, spurting within the last days of the marketing campaign after operating neck-and-neck with Jakobsdottir.
Jakobsdottir conceded defeat already within the early hours of Sunday, earlier than the final votes have been counted.
“It seems to me that Halla Tomasdottir is quickly heading towards becoming the next president of Iceland.
“I congratulate her on that and know that she might be a superb president,” Jakobsdottir told national broadcaster RUV at an election night rally.
Second woman president
Tomasdottir was to make a televised address to the nation later on Sunday.
During her election rally in the early hours of Sunday, she told daily Morgunbladid was “simply making an attempt to breathe”.
“I really feel extremely good. I do know it isn’t over till it is over. So I’m additionally simply making an attempt to remain calm and breathe,” she said.
Tomasdottir is also the founder of Audur Capital, an investment firm created in 2007 aimed at promoting feminine values in the financial sector.
No one central issue dominated the campaign, where candidates traditionally run as independents without party affiliations.
In the country of 380,000 people, any citizen gathering 1,500 signatures can run for office.
Read extraIceland: A feminist paradise?
While Jakobsdottir was at instances seen because the favorite, political observers had instructed that her background as prime minister may weigh in opposition to her.
Among the opposite fundamental candidates within the subject of 13 have been a political science professor, a comic, and an Arctic and power scholar.
Tomasdottir is about to be the second girl to function Iceland’s president.
In 1980, Vigdis Finnbogadottir grew to become the world’s first girl democratically elected as head of state.
Tomasdottir will take over the place on August 1, succeeding the vastly fashionable Gudni Johannesson, who has held the job since 2016.
He introduced earlier this 12 months that he wouldn’t search re-election.
Jakobsdottir, social gathering chief for the Left Green Movement from 2013 till her presidential bid, has been hailed for her dealing with of the resurgence in volcanic eruptions on the Reykjanes peninsula since December.
The 5 eruptions, together with one final week, have sparked a collection of evacuations in addition to the state’s acquisition of properties from residents evacuated from the threatened fishing city of Grindavik.
(AFP)
https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20240602-businesswoman-tomasdottir-becomes-iceland-s-next-president