At stake in this election:

• 63 seats in the Parliament (Althing)

Description of government structure:

• Chief of State: President Olafur Ragnar GRÍMSSON
• Head of Government: Prime Minister Davíð ODDSSON
• Assembly: Iceland has a unicameral Parliament (Althing) with 63 seats.

Description of electoral system:

• The President is elected by plurality vote to serve a 4-year term.
• The Prime Minister is appointed by the president with the approval of the parliament.
• In the Parliament (Althing), 54 members are elected through an open-list proportional representation system to serve 4-year terms and 9 members are elected by open list proportional representation in multi-member constituencies to serve 4-year terms.***

*** There are six multi-member districts. Each of nine compensatory seats is assigned by the election commission to corresponds to a multi-member district. These seats are awarded to parties from the same open lists in order to make the parties' overall seat shares proportional to their national vote shares. Parties must clear a 5 percent threshold to win these compensatory seats.

Main parties in this electoral race:

• Independence Party / Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn
  • Leader: Davíð ODDSSON
  • Seats won in last election: 25
• Social Democratic Alliance / Samfylkingin-Jafnaðarmannaflokkur Íslands
  • Leader: Jóhanna SIGURÐARDÓTTIR
  • Seats won in last election: 7
• Progressive Party / Framsóknarflokkurinn
  • Leader: Halldór ÁSGRÍMSSON
  • Seats won in last election: 15
• Liberal Party / Frjálslyndi flokkurinn
  • Leader: Guðjón Arnar KRISTJÁNSSON
  • Seats won in last election: N/A
• Other Parties

Last parliementary election:

• The last parliamentary election was held on 8 April, 1995.

Population and registered voters:

• Population: 277,381 (1999)
• Registered Voters: 201,525

Gender Data:

·         Female Population: 138,541 (1999)

·         Is Iceland a signatory to CEDAW: Yes (24 July 1980)

·         Has Iceland ratified CEDAW: Yes (18 June 1985)

·         Gender Quota: No

·         Female candidates in this election: Yes

·         Number of Female Parliamentarians: 22 (following the 1999 elections)

·         Human Development Index Position: 16 (2014)

·         Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) Categorization: N/A

Disability Data:

·         Is Iceland a signatory to CRPD: Yes (30 March 2007)

·         Has Iceland ratified CRPD: No

·         Population with a disability: 41,607