Iceland could face it’s second snap election in a year as The Bright Future party announced plans to withdraw from the three-party coalition after just nine months.
The Bright Future party said in a Facebook post that it had “decided to terminate cooperation with the government”.
This was following the news that the Prime Minister’s Independence party attempted to hide the letter written by his father to have his friend convicted of child sexual offences have his criminal record cleared and “honour restored”.
The convicted friend is Hjalti Sigurjón Hauksson, who was found to be continually raping his stepdaughter on a daily basis since the age of five.
The third member of the coalition, The Reform party, have called for another vote.
“In light of the situation, the Reform party believes the right thing to do is to call an election immediately,” they wrote.
The Prime Minister’s father Mr Sveinsson apologised for writing the letter.
“I have never considered the restored honour as anything except a legal procedure making it possible for convicted criminals to regain some civil rights,” he said in a statement released on Thursday.
“I did not think of it as something that would justify Hjalti’s position towards his victim. I told Hjalti to face his action and to repent.”
“What was supposed to be a small gesture of good will towards a convicted criminal has instead turned into a continuation of the tragedy for the victim. For this I again apologise.”
Icelandic journalist Hjortur Gudmundsson said that the coalition is already fragile and another election would be a likely option.
“Since the economic crash of 2008 there has been a lot of suspicion towards politicians and a huge onus on honesty,” he said.
“This is not the first time controversy has been linked to the PM – he was implicated in the Panama Papers [which brought down the previous government, in which he was finance minister]. There isn’t much public patience for this kind of thing.”