Iceland's conservative prime minister came out on top in a snap election despite a string of scandals, final results confirmed Sunday, but it remained unclear whether he will be able to form a viable coalition.
PM Bjarni Benediktsson, 47, was accused named last year in the "Panama Papers" worldwide tax-evasion leaks. He has also been accused of wrongdoing during Iceland's financial collapse in 2008.
His Independence Party, however, beat its rivals in yesterday's election, according to final results published today, although no party came near to winning a majority in parliament.
The Independence Party won 16 seats in the 63-seat parliament. Turnout was 81 per cent.
It could now take days, weeks or even months before Iceland has a new government in place as thorny coalition negotiations await.
Benediktsson's challenge comes from the Left Green Movement and its potential allies, the Social Democratic Alliance and the anti-establishment Pirate Party.
The Left-Green Movement came in second with 11 seats, the Social Democratic Alliance with seven seats, and the Pirates with six seats.
A total of eight parties won seats in parliament.
Iceland's President Gudni Johannesson has invited the leader of each of those parties to his residence tomorrow.
After meeting them individually, he will decide who gets the first mandate to try to assemble a government.
Under the Icelandic system, the president, who holds a largely ceremonial role, usually tasks the leader of the biggest party with putting a government together.
"I am optimistic that we can form a government," Benediktsson told AFP after the polls closed yesterday.
The Independence Party lost five seats in parliament, according to todays results, but still came out on top -- apparently helped by Iceland's thriving economy, fuelled by a flourishing tourism sector.
The party has been involved in almost every government in Iceland since 1980.
But growing public distrust of the elite has spawned several anti-establishment parties.
These have splintered the political landscape and made it increasingly difficult to form a stable government.
Benediktsson's main rival, the Left-Green Movement won fewer votes than expected.
It will need at least five allies to form a 32-seat majority to dethrone the conservatives.
If it manages to do so, it would form only the second left-leaning government in Iceland since the country's proclamation as a republic in 1944.
"I'm worried that we may have to face up to the likelihood of long, drawn-out discussions and attempts to form a government," Arnar Thor Jonsson, a law professor at Reykjavik University, told AFP.
Negotiations to form a coalition after the October 2016 election took three months.
Some voters are tired. It was Iceland's fourth election since 2008 and the second in a year.
"I hope we will have more stable politics now... but I'm rather pessimistic about it," Einar Orn Thorlacius, a lawyer in Reykjavik, told AFP.
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