OUR LATEST ISSUE
Iceland votes lesbian in as Prime Minister
Johanna Sigurdardottir
The world has its first openly gay leader.
“Our time has come,” said Jóhanna Sigurdardóttir, the gay leader of the Social Democrats whose coalition with the Left-Green Party has swept to power in Iceland, ending eighteen years of conservative rule.
Ms Sigurdardóttir, a former air hostess and previously the country’s Social Affairs Minister, had been acting as interim Prime Minister since the opposition ruling Independent Party fell into disarray at the beginning of the year following the country’s economic collapse.
Ms Sigurdardóttir is one of Iceland’s most popular politicians with an approval rating of 73 per cent. She was first elected to the Atheling, the Icelandic Parliament, in 1978 as a member of the Social Democrat Party, later the Social Democratic Alliance.
She entered into a civil partnership with the writer Jónina Leósdótt in 2002 and has two adult sons from a previous marriage.
"Being gay is not an issue in Iceland," Frosti Jónsson, chairman of Iceland's gay-and-lesbian association, told Time magazine earlier this year.
"There are so many openly gay prominent figures in both the public and private sector here that it doesn't affect who we select for our highest offices. Our minds are focused on what counts, which is the current situation in the country."
