Iceland Forms A New Government... Without The Pirate Party

Last month, we recognized that while it was still a long shot, it was interesting that the Iceland Pirate Party actually had a chance to form the new government there. A few previous efforts had failed and the job had fallen to the Pirate Party. However, it didn't take long for reports to leak out that the Pirate Party was having trouble building a coalition that would form the new government. And now a new government has been formed without the Pirate Party as part of the coalition:

Iceland's center-right Independence, Reform and Bright Future parties have agreed to form a coalition government and will give parliament a vote on whether to hold a referendum on joining the European Union.

Together, the coalition will hold 32 of the 63 seats in parliament. The Independence Party will have 21 seats, making it the largest party in the coalition.

This was always the most likely result -- as these groups also got the first crack at trying to form a coalition, and couldn't make it work at the time. That was part of what left an opening for the Pirate Party to try. It certainly would have been interesting to see what a Pirate Party-led Iceland would have been able to do -- especially in a time where we really could use a haven for freedom of expression, internet freedom and privacy. But, alas, it didn't happen this time around.

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