Halla Tómasdóttir put into office as Iceland’s second female president

Halla Tómasdóttir takes office as President of Iceland today. She will be the second woman to hold the position. The formal program begins today at 15:30. "The setup is the same as in 2016 [when Jóhannesson, the sitting president, first took office]. In 2020, of course, and during Covid, everything was smaller,” says Sigurður Örn Guðleifsson, a lawyer in the Prime Minister's Office who is responsible for organizing the inauguration, in an interview with Morgunblaðið.

The program begins with a liturgy in the cathedral. From there, we will go to the parliament building, where the ceremony will occur. After the announcement of the presidential election and the pledge of allegiance, the new president of Iceland will deliver a speech and address the nation from the balcony of the parliament building. Screens will be installed, and live broadcasts of the ceremony in the parliament building and the liturgy in the cathedral will be shown. The public is welcome to come and watch.

Kristín Edwald describes her election

The ceremony will differ from previous ones in that the chairman of the National Electoral Commission will announce the election. Previously, the President of the Supreme Court had that role, but then ballot papers were issued. The arrangement was changed by the new election law approved in 2021. The explanatory documents with the bill state that the change came about due to the Supreme Court's suggestion that such election administration is not in line with the court's role.

The lawyer Kristín Edwald is the chairman of the National Electoral Commission. Once before, a woman declared a woman elected to the office of President of Iceland. It was in 1992 when Vigdís Finnbogadóttir was elected for the fourth time. Then, Guðrún Erlendsdóttir, the President of the Supreme Court at the time, announced her election.