Jón Gnarr for PM?

“Nobody has a better chance of becoming Iceland’s next Prime Minister than Jón Gnarr – should he fancy the job,” reads the latest Facebook post by Össur Skarphéðinsson, MP for the Social Democratic Alliance (‘Samfylkingin’) and former Foreign Minister of Iceland.

Jón Gnarr is a leading Icelandic actor and comedian, who served as quirky Mayor of Reykjavik from 2010 to 2014. He has already ruled out running for President of Iceland, as some have suggested he should do.

A Pirate PM on the cards

“There could still be a great future for Jón Gnarr,” continues Skarphéðinsson. He sees the political events of the past few weeks, i.e. immense opinion poll success for the Pirate party (‘Píratar’) and the departure of Jón Gnarr from the Bright Future party (‘Björt framtíð’) as a sign that Jón Gnarr might be on his way to join the Pirates.

Skarphéðinsson predicts than the current government will fall at the next elections and the Pirate party will be the largest of the new ruling parties, which means that the Prime Minister will come from their ranks.

Nobody better for the job

“Nobody in reach of the Pirate party has more experience of running a country than the man who ran the capital so successfully – as Jón Gnarr certainly did. […] He can’t make a worse job of it than those currently running the country.”