I appreciated Constantin Seibt’s article on the anarchists playing with the Icelandic electoral system. The Best party had a wonderful list of campaign promises:
A glance at the most important campaign promises of the Best Party is more than enough to highlight the audacity of Reykjavik’s voters. They were promised free towels at swimming pools, a polar bear for the zoo, the import of Jews, «so that someone who understands something about economics finally comes to Iceland», a drug-free parliament by 2020, inaction «we’ve worked hard all our lives and want to take a well-paid four-year break now», Disneyland with free weekly passes for the unemployed «where they can have themselves photographed with Goofy», greater understanding for the rural population «every Icelandic farmer should be able to take a sheep to a hotel for free», free bus tickets. And all this with the caveat: «We can promise more than any other party because we will break every campaign promise.»The Best Party emerged from an idea for a sketch show.
via More punk, less hell! – News Ausland: Europa – tagesanzeiger.ch.
You know how it goes, they win the election, form a coalition government, fix the budget, and suggest that humorous performance art may be more effective than traditional governance.
An assessment of four years of anarchist rule yields a rather surprising conclusion: the punks put the city’s financial house in order. They can also look back on some very successful speeches, a few dozen kilometers of bike paths, a zoning plan, a new school organization that no one complains about any more and a relaxed, booming city – tourism is growing by 20% a year and some say that is the new bubble. In speeches, president Grímsson no longer praises Icelanders’ killer instinct, but their creativity. Real estate prices are again on the rise and the Range Rovers are back too. In polls last October, the Best Party hit its high-water mark of 38%. Shortly thereafter, Gnarr announced he would retire and dissolve the Best Party. His reason: «I’m a comedian, not a politician.» He added: «I was a cab driver for four years, a really good one even, and I quit doing that as well.»«My question was always: ‹How do we fuck the system?›» says Örn. «And the answer was, we show that non-politicians can do the job as well. But quitting with a certain election victory within reach, that’s truly fucking the system!»
via More punk, less hell! – News Ausland: Europa – tagesanzeiger.ch.
Thanks to longreads for the suggestion.
Life of refinement 