Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir

Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir (born October 4, 1942, Reykjavík, Iceland) was an Icelandic politician who served as prime minister of Iceland from 2009 to 2013. She was the country’s first female prime minister and the world’s first openly gay head of government (Per-Kristian Foss served briefly as acting prime minister of Norway in 2002).

Sigurðardóttir worked as a flight attendant for Loftleiðir Icelandic Airlines from 1962 to 1971, and she was an active labour union member, twice serving as chairman of the board of the Icelandic Cabin Crew Association (1966, 1969). She took an office job in Reykjavík in 1971. While there she continued her association with organized labour, and she sat on the board of the Commercial Workers’ Union. In 1978 Sigurðardóttir was elected to the Althing (parliament) as a member of the Social Democratic Party, representing Reykjavík. She quickly gained a reputation as an advocate for social justice, and she called for the strengthening of Iceland’s welfare system. She was named minister of social affairs in 1987, a position she held until 1994, when she unsuccessfully campaigned for leadership of the Social Democratic Party. Sigurðardóttir responded to this setback by forming her own party, National Movement, which captured four seats in the subsequent parliamentary election. The two parties reconciled in 1999, when they joined with the Women’s Alliance and the People’s Alliance to contest that year’s election; in 2000 the coalition formally became the Social Democratic Alliance.

By this time Sigurðardóttir had established herself as one of the leading personalities in Icelandic politics. She returned to the ministry of social affairs in 2007, and she emerged as a voice of calm in the wake of Iceland’s financial collapse in 2008. After the resignation of conservative Prime Minister Geir Haarde in January 2009, Sigurðardóttir led a coalition of Social Democrats and Left-Greens to form a caretaker minority government. On February 1, 2009, she was formally sworn in as Iceland’s prime minister. In the April elections the Social Democrats and Left-Greens won 34 seats, capturing a slim majority in the 63-member parliament. Shortly thereafter Sigurðardóttir announced that one of her top priorities as prime minister would be securing Iceland’s membership in the European Union.

On June 27, 2010, the day that same-sex marriage became legal in Iceland, Sigurðardóttir and her partner Jónína Leósdóttir were married by means of a simple conversion of their registered partnership. During Sigurðardóttir’s tenure as prime minister, Iceland’s economy got back on sound footing after being rocked by the 2008 financial crisis. GDP had dropped by 6.5 percent and 4 percent in 2009 and 2010, respectively, but it bounced back to 3 percent growth in both 2011 and 2012. It also appeared as if Iceland would draft and adopt a new constitution during Sigurðardóttir’s time in office. An innovative process through which 25 Icelanders were selected from a pool of 525 citizens to draft the new constitution—relying on feedback through e-mail and social media—resulted in a document that was approved by some two-thirds of those who voted on it in a nonbinding referendum in October 2012. Once the new draft constitution reached the Althing, however, the process stalled, seemingly because of opposition to it by the Progressive and Independence parties. Sigurðardóttir chose to not run for reelection and watched as her ruling coalition lost 18 of its 34 seats in the 2013 election to cede power to the Progressive and Independence parties.