At stake in this Referendum:

• A referendum on the guarantees for a payment of Icesave accounts to the UK and Netherlands.

Description of government structure:

• Chief of State: President Olafur Ragnar GRIMSSON
• Head of Government: Prime Minister Johanna SIGURDARDOTTIR
• 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 provisions in the Referendum:

• Whether to adopt terms set by Parliament on the repayment of debt to Netherlands and the United Kingdom (the "Icesave bill"). Iceland incurred this debt when those governments insured their respective nationals' accounts in Icelandic banks that collapsed in 2008. Law number 13/2011 allows for the Minister of Finance to to confirm the contract which was inscribed in London on the 8th December 2010, on responsibility for the Depositor and Investors’ Protection Fund to re-pay the British and Dutch states for the cost of the minimum insurance amount to depositors in branches of Landsbanki Islands hf. in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands and the payment of the balance and interest on those obligations. The law was passed by Althingi on the 16th February 2011 but the President of Iceland declined to pass it. Should law number 13/2011 remain in force? Possible answers are: Yes, it should remain in force. No, it should be repealed.

Population and number of registered voters:

• Population: 319,014 (2011)
• Registered Voters: 232,422 (April 2011 )

Gender Data:

·         Female Population: 158,651 (2011)

·         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: N/A

·         Number of Female Parliamentarians: 27 (following the 2009 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: 47,852 (est.)