http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxBW4mPzv6E&feature=player_embedded
'We want to city that's cuddly and cool...
Stop the usual bluffs.
Doing better isn't all that tough.
Send it all back.
Things have gone sour.
Time for clean up hour.
Sustainable transparency.
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Comedian elected Reykjavik’s mayor
By Andrew Ward in Stockholm
Published: May 31 2010 23:06 | Last updated: May 31 2010 23:06
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b580935e-6cee-11df-91c8-00144feab49a.html
Jon Gnarr Kristinsson finished his latest stand-up comedy tour last week. Now he is ready to embark on a career as mayor of Reykjavik.
The popular comic actor looks set to take charge of the Icelandic capital after his satirical political party won the most votes in local elections over the weekend.
Mr Kristinsson, whose spoof platform included free towels in swimming pools and a polar bear for the city zoo, says his victory signals mass discontent with politicians after the country’s 2008 banking crisis.
“I think they will have to rethink their whole existence after this,” the writer and star of several comedy films and sitcoms told the Financial Times on Monday.
Mr Kristinsson set up the Best party last November as a satire of the political incompetence and, in some cases, corruption that contributed to Iceland’s banking boom and bust.
But the parody was seized on quickly by voters looking for a way to vent their anger against the ruling elite, two months after an official report accused the Icelandic government and regulators of “extreme negligence” in the run-up to the crisis.
Mr Kristinsson’s party won 34.7 per cent of the vote and six of the 15 council seats – just short of an overall majority. He said talks were under way with the centre-left Social Democrats to form a coalition, with him as mayor.
“I love this city very much so I really want to do a good job,” he said. “I will keep my humour and use it to my advantage. It is my aim to be International Mayor of the Year for 2012.”
Other Best party candidates elected included Einar Orn Benediktsson, a former singer with the Sugarcubes, an Icelandic pop band.
In an election video posted on YouTube, Mr Kristinsson and his colleagues sang a version of the Tina Turner anthem “Simply the Best” in which they promised to make Reykjavik “cuddly, clean and cool” and give the “blathering loons” of the traditional parties a “new home in the city zoo”.
Johanna Sigurdardottir, Iceland’s prime minister, acknowledged that the result was a vote of no confidence in the political establishment.
“This is a big shock, a crash landing for the four political parties,” Ms Sigurdardottir told RUV, the public broadcaster.
Ms Sigurdardottir’s Social Democrats were swept to power with the Left-Green party last year in a revolt against the conservative Independence party, which led Iceland into crisis.
However, the government has slumped in popularity as it struggles to rebuild the shattered economy and both ruling parties finished behind the Independence party in the vote on Saturday.
Jon Baldvin Hannibalsson, a former finance minister and foreign minister for the Social Democrats, said Icelanders were showing the “classical response” to economic crisis. “First comes the anger and the revolution. Then, when the revolution fails, you get a vacuum. The Best party has stepped into that vacuum,” he said. “We have had a lot of politicians who are obviously buffoons, so these are no worse.”
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Mr. Gnarr, a popular radio host, conceptual artist and comedian, is poised to win Saturday's municipal election here.
With its special brand of absurdist nihilism, and under a slogan that loosely translates to "Whatever Works!" Mr. Gnarr's Best Party is tapping into the national protest mood.
Residents of this nation of 320,000 were incensed when a recent parliamentary report exposed the close relationships that existed between politicians and the brash bankers who fueled a colossal credit bubble that laid waste to the country's economy in 2008.
Now, many are embracing Mr. Gnarr's campaign as a way to send a message that they will no longer tolerate the politics-as-usual that led to the financial disaster.
The Mayor's Office - A Jon Gnarr Comedy Show
"A joke is a very serious thing"
Winston Churchill
The results of the elections on Saturday were historical. What started as a joke has now made the joker, Jon Gnarr the next mayor of Reykjavik but his party, the Best Party, got 34,7% of the votes. Without any prior experience - or interest - in politics, it is now his job to form a new functioning city council.
Jon Gnarr looked shocked when the first numbers came in, while the leaders of the other parties declared victory, despite losing more than ever. Somehow, politicians seems to have the talent for turning a loss into victory.
It looks as we will not get Disneyland to downtown Reykjavik, despite the Best Party's victory. But we might get free towels in the swimming pools and a polar bear to the local zoo - and hopefully, a sustainable transparency, as promised.
It will be tricky for Jon Gnarr, and I don't think he imagined him self being a mayor for the next four years. But he says he's up for it and I hope he will actually make some of those changes promised, crowdsourcing city tasks and challenges, bringing the politics closer to the people and actually getting an RV as the mayors car so he can drive around and drink coffee with the citizens. Maybe he could even take it one step further and turn the mayors office into a weekly reality show. That would be something new.
He'll need to be creative if the joke is to be funny for four more years. But he's not alone, he's got some of the most creative minds on board, including Einar Örn from the Sugarcubes and a music producer, Óttar Proppé, a well known artist. In his propaganda video to Tina Turner's song Simply the Best Jonsi from SigurRós is singing with him and he has been mentioned as the parties presidental candidate in the presidental election in two years. (correction - Jonsi is not in the video, but has been mentioned as the party's presidential candidate). There's no turning back now and it is my hope that he will make some actual changes to some of the ridiculousness that has become the norm in politics.
So who is he, this Jon Gnarr?
He's a comedian and has been a part of some of the most popular comedy shows for the last 10-15 years. He's got no education and didn't even finish elementary school because of his ADHD. Yet, he is the man who manages to break up the system, the four party system that everyone is fed up with and has lost confident in. In my town, Hafnarfjordur, which is a suburb to Reykjavik, there were no other options than the traditional four. As a result, voter turnout was record low, only 65%, and 14,6% returned an empty vote in protest.
We'll have to see if we'll still be laughing in four years from now.
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