Halla Tomasdottir is ready to be the second girl to function Iceland’s president.

Reykjavik:

Businesswoman Halla Tomasdottir was on Sunday declared the winner of Iceland’s presidential election, ultimate outcomes confirmed, beating former prime minister Katrin Jakobsdottir whom critics mentioned was too political for the publish.

Jakobsdottir conceded defeat early on Sunday and congratulated Tomasdottir, the CEO of The B Crew, a worldwide non-profit co-founded by UK enterprise tycoon Richard Branson to advertise enterprise practices targeted 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.

She or he does nonetheless have the facility to veto laws or submit it to a referendum.

Tomasdottir, 55, gained 34.3 p.c of votes, forward of 48-year-old Jakobsdottir, who garnered 25.5 p.c 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 recommended within the run-up to this yr’s vote, spurting within the ultimate 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 had been counted.

“It appears to me that Halla Tomasdottir is rapidly heading in the direction of turning into the following president of Iceland. 

“I congratulate her on that and know that she can be a very good president,” Jakobsdottir advised nationwide broadcaster RUV at an election night time rally.

Second girl president

Tomasdottir was to make a televised tackle to the nation in a while Sunday. Throughout her election rally within the early hours of Sunday, she advised each day Morgunbladid was “simply attempting to breathe”.

“I really feel extremely good. I do know it isn’t over till it is over. So I am additionally simply attempting to remain calm and breathe,” she mentioned.

Tomasdottir can also be the founding father of Audur Capital, an funding agency created in 2007 aimed toward selling female values within the monetary sector.

Nobody central problem dominated the marketing campaign, the place candidates historically run as independents with out occasion affiliations.

Within the nation of 380,000 folks, any citizen gathering 1,500 signatures can run for workplace.

Whereas Jakobsdottir was at occasions seen because the favorite, political observers had recommended that her background as prime minister might weigh towards her.

Among the many different predominant candidates within the subject of 13 had been a political science professor, a comic, and an Arctic and power scholar.

Tomasdottir is ready to be the second girl to function Iceland’s president. 

In 1980, Vigdis Finnbogadottir turned the world’s first girl democratically elected as head of state.

Tomasdottir will take over the place on August 1, succeeding the massively fashionable Gudni Johannesson, who has held the job since 2016.

He introduced earlier this yr that he wouldn’t search re-election.

Jakobsdottir, occasion chief for the Left Inexperienced Motion 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 sequence of evacuations in addition to the state’s acquisition of properties from residents evacuated from the threatened fishing city of Grindavik.

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