Johanna Sigurdardottir will become the first openly gay or lesbian leader of a modern country on Saturday when she is named the Prime Minister of Iceland.Sigurdardottir, 66, is currently the social affairs minister and once was a flight attendant and union organiser.
Now she is the consensus pick of the two main parties forming the next parliamentary governement as well as the most popular politician in her financially distressed country.
Ms Sigurdardottir has two grown-up sons. She entered politics via the labour movement, was first elected to parliament in 1978 and was given her first ministerial office in 1987. She will be Prime Minister of a minority caretaker government composed of her Social Democratic Alliance and the Left-Greens, with outside support. It is only expected to hold office for two or three months, until fresh elections are called.
"In opinion polls Johanna has repeatedly been chosen as the most popular politician in Iceland," said the government source. "She is a good choice, because one of the problems the government is facing is lack of trust. Getting Johanna to become Prime Minister was a way of saying trust is an issue. Politicians want a fresh mandate from the electorate and, before they get it, they need to rebuild trust. Choosing Johanna is a way of saying, 'Let's bridge this gap, let's have peace to be able to implement the emergency measures'."
[A] poll in November [that] gave Ms Sigurdardottir a 73 per cent approval rating, she was the only minister to improve on the previous year's score.
"She is often described as the only politician who really cares about the little guy," wrote Icelandic journalist Iris Erlingsdottir in a blog this week.
She did stand for the leadership of her party back in 1994 and lost badly, but in her concession speech she predicted "my time will come". And some 15 years later, it truly has.
(When) do you think that America will have an openly gay President?
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