Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson
Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson [ 'ouːlavʏr' raknar 'krimsɔn ] (born May 14, 1943 in Ísafjörður ) is an Icelandic politician . As the successor to Vigdís Finnbogadóttir , he was the fifth President of Iceland for five terms from 1996 to 2016 .
Private and professional
Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson was born to Grímur Kristgeirsson and Svanhildur Ólafsdóttir Hjartar in Ísafjörður . He studied economics and political science at the University of Manchester from 1962 to 1970 . He was instrumental in introducing political science to Iceland and was Professor of Political Science at Reykjavík University for 18 years .
From 1983 to 1985 he was editor of the newspaper Þjóðviljinn .
He married his first wife Guðrún Katrín Þorbergsdóttir in 1974, she died of leukemia in 1998 . There are two daughters from this marriage. Since May 14, 2003, Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson has been married to Dorrit Moussaieff , who is of Israeli-British origin , for the second time .
politics
He spent his political apprenticeship with the liberal Progressive Party , then moved to the Union of Liberals and Left ( Samtök frjálslyndra og vinstri manna ), for which he was elected to the Althing in 1974 . In 1978 he was re-elected, but this time as a candidate for the left People's Alliance , of which he was parliamentary group leader between 1980 and 1983. From 1987 to 1995 he positioned the People's Alliance as chairman in the middle of the political spectrum. From 1988 to 1991 he was Finance Minister in Steingrímur Hermannsson's second cabinet . As a member of parliament and minister, Ólafur was already known and controversial because of his sharp and sometimes polemical way of discussing.
On June 2, 2004, Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson became the first Icelandic president to refuse to sign a law passed by the Althing . The previously very controversial media law could not come into force. He had already announced that he would be releasing the office of Icelandic President from its purely ceremonial role and making it more political than has been customary up to now. According to opinion polls, around 70 percent of Icelanders are in favor of this approach. Ólafur's re-election on June 26, 2004 was correspondingly clear: he received 85.6 percent of the valid votes cast. However, 20.6 percent of voters cast blank ballots in protest. The turnout was 62.9 percent.
In 2008 there was a silent election because no opposing candidate had run.
In February 2009 Ólafur spoke out against the compensation of German customers of Kaupthing Bank . He called it unfair that the Icelandic people should bear the burdens of the financial crisis alone. In 2010, Ólafur refused to sign the so-called Icesave Act, which was supposed to guarantee the repayment of foreign savings to the United Kingdom and the Netherlands , after numerous popular protests.
In March 2012 Ólafur announced his renewed candidacy after a support campaign from the population. In the presidential election on June 30, 2012, he received a good 52 percent of the vote. He is the first president in Icelandic history to take up a fifth term.
On the occasion of his televised address on January 1, 2016, he initially announced that he would no longer apply for a further mandate as president in the 2016 presidential election. On April 18, he announced that he would be available for a sixth term. According to the Panama Papers (resignation of Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson on April 6, 2016), he wanted to give Iceland stability. On May 9th, he withdrew his candidacy. The day before his final retirement as a candidate, Ólafur Ragnar said in a television interview that the candidacies of Guðni Th. Jóhannesson and Davíð Oddsson had changed the starting position. His waiver is also linked to the fact that it has meanwhile become known that his wife's name appears in the Panama Papers. Shortly before, in a CNN interview , he had firmly denied Christiane Amanpour's question whether he or his wife would be linked to “offshore accounts” .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://www.ruv.is/forsetakosningar/kannanir-og-urslit (link not available)
- ↑ President speaks against compensation for German victims from Spiegel online, February 10, 2009, accessed on July 1, 2012.
- ↑ Iceland's President Blocks Billion Payments Spiegel Online, January 1, 2010, accessed July 1, 2012.
- ↑ http://www.ruv.is/forsetakosningar/kannanir-og-urslit (link not available)
- ↑ Ingrid Meissl: Elections in Iceland: Superior victory for Olafur Ragnar Grimsson at nzz.ch, July 1, 2012 (accessed July 1, 2012).
- ↑ Nýársávarp forseta Íslands. In: RÚV. Retrieved January 2, 2016 .
- ↑ icelandmonitor.mbl.is at icelandmonitor.mbl.is, January 1, 2016 (accessed January 1, 2016).
- ↑ Speech by Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson in Icelandic. (PDF) (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on January 2, 2016 ; Retrieved January 2, 2016 (Icelandic).
- ↑ Speech by Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson in English. (PDF) (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on January 2, 2016 ; accessed on January 2, 2016 .
- ↑ Ólafur Ragnar býður sig fram aftur. Retrieved April 18, 2016 (Icelandic).
- ↑ Iceland's President Runs for Sixth Term. Retrieved April 18, 2016 (English).
- ↑ No, no, no, no, no - or at least. Retrieved December 25, 2018 .
- ^ Paul Fontaine: Ólafur Ragnar Drops Out. The Reykjavík Grapevine, May 9, 2016, accessed May 9, 2016 .
- ^ Vala Hafstað: Iceland's President Withdraws Candidacy. In: Iceland Review Online. May 9, 2016, accessed November 10, 2016 .
- ↑ Jessica Sturmberg: Presidential election campaign in Iceland: Turbulence around Panama Papers influence election. In: Deutschlandfunk. June 7, 2016, Retrieved June 9, 2016 .
- ↑ Zoë Robert: President: 'Thought Amanpour was Asking about Family in Iceland, Not First Lady's Family'. In: Iceland Review Online. May 7, 2016, accessed June 9, 2016 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Icelandic politician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 14, 1943 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Ísafjörður |