REYKJAVIK, Iceland — Iceland’s leftist government was headed for a strong victory in the country’s general election, according to preliminary results late Saturday.
Early results showed that a left-wing coalition made up of the Social Democratic Alliance and the Left Green Movement has won 35 of the 63 seats in parliament.
The two parties are part of a caretaker government that took office in February after public protests about Iceland’s economic collapse toppled the previous conservative administration. The left-wing coalition is led by interim Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir.
“The nation is settling the score with the neoliberalism, with the Independence Party, who have been in power for much too long,” Sigurdardottir told supporters. “The people are calling for a change of ethics. That is why they have voted for us.”
The results represent a strong victory for Iceland’s pro-European Social Democratic Alliance, which has won 22 seats in parliament, with 33 percent of the votes counted.
The Left Green Movement, which has traditionally opposed closer ties with the European Union, performed slightly worse than expected with 13 seats. That leaves the Social Democrats a chance to lead a parliament with a pro-European majority.
The global financial crisis washed up hard on the shores of this volcanic island. Unemployment and inflation have spiraled, and the International Monetary Fund has predicted that the economy will shrink by about 10 percent in 2009, which would be Iceland’s biggest slump since it won full independence from Denmark in 1944.
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