Will take support from the Centre Party and the Independence Party

Eiríkur Bergmann, professor of political science at the University of …

Eiríkur Bergmann, professor of political science at the University of Bifröst.

"Most experiments like this don't last long," says Eiríkur Bergmann, professor of political science at the University of Bifröst, when asked about Arnar Þór Jónsson's founding of the Democratic Party, which he introduced this weekend.

Jónsson says he founded the Democratic Party to work against the trend towards over-management and mismanagement which is bringing the Icelandic public and Icelandic companies to their knees. He says the lead-up to founding the Democratic Party has been a long one.

"Of course, there are some examples of newly formed parties gaining a foothold, such as the Centre Party and the Liberal Reform Party, but political innovations of this nature usually do better if it is sitting members of parliament who initiate such a thing," says Eiríkur Bergmann to mbl.is

Bergmann says that it is very common for parties like this to rise in the polls, to begin with, but then it can be more complicated for them to last and reach the finish line. In this connection, he mentions Lilja Mósesdóttir's party, the Solidarity Party, which initially went through the roof but eventually did not make it into parliament.

He adds that Jónsson will try to get some of  the supporters of the Centre Party and the Independence Party.

"It is this emphasis on sovereignty that is a very strong mark of the Centre party that he is positioning himself for. This can in some way get some of the rise in support that the Centre Party has seen recently. Nothing is out of the question, especially to begin with," Bergmann says.

A lot is happening on the right wing

Bergmann says that a lot is going on in the right wing of politics which is changing a lot with the huge fall in support for the Independence Party, which is sandwiched between new right wing parties on either side of it.

"The Centre Party seeks to follow the Independence Party on the conservative side, the national conservatism, while the Liberal Reform Party seeks to follow the party on the liberal side. This means that the Independence Party does not quite know which way to turn when it comes to this. It has started to try to regain this support that seems to be moving to the Centre Party, and has left a certain gap on the liberal side of the party, which the Liberal Reform Party has started to take advantage of.

Have you already envisioned when the election will be called?

"I don't think there will be an election this year and it will be in the first half of next year rather than the second, but there is no way to predict that now."

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