Icelanders start voting in parliamentary election

• Source: Xinhua
• [08:05 April 26 2009]
• Comments

Icelanders began to vote in the country's parliamentary election on Saturday, months after its financial systems collapsed during the world's economic downturn, reports reaching here from Reykjavik, capital of Iceland, said.

The voting began at 0900 GMT and was due to end at 2200 GMT. A final result is not due until early Sunday, the Icelandic daily Frettabladid reported.

 Public opinion polls have showed a comfortable victory for Johanna Sigurdardottir, current Prime Minister and a social democrat, and her coalition partner the Left-Green Movement, said Frettabladid.

Sigurdardottir gets 52.6 percent of respondents' support in a latest opinion poll conducted by the newspaper, it added.

 "I will defend the weakest in this society with all my might, the invalids, the poor, those who are most vulnerable," Sigurdardotti was quoted as saying by the Frettabladid.

As Iceland's first female Prime Minister, Sigurdardottir promised a new coalition between the Social Democratic Alliance and the Left-Green Movement will focus on restarting the economy and protecting the households.

The previous government headed by Geir Haarde was forced to resign on Jan. 26 after months of increasingly violent protests triggered by current economic crisis.