From university to parliament: Students who became MPs

Translation: Árni Pétur Árnason

The University of Iceland (UI) is Iceland’s largest university and it should therefore not come as a surprise that most former and current MPs are University of Iceland graduates. An education from UI  provides excellent preparation for early careers,  including political careers. If you dream of introducing bills concerning the policies you care most about, you do not necessarily need to wait until after you graduate from The University of Iceland to do so

Criticized his professor in parliament

Former student Ragnar Arnalds' political career began in an incredible fashion. He began studying law at UI when he was elected to the Althing in 1963. Along with Ragnar, Ólafur Jóhannesson, a professor at The University of Iceland and Ragnar’s teacher, was elected.

“Ólafur was not always comfortable having a student of his from UI criticize him, both during the election campaign and on the benches of parliament,” Ragnar Arnalds recalled from lifdununa.is.

A student criticizing his professor in parliament and then going to the same professor to take a test is surely not common in other countries. There, the professor would probably do everything in his power to make sure the student failed the test and was expelled. But not in Iceland. Ragnar Arnalds became Minister of Education and Transport in the cabinet of professor Ólafur Jóhannesson. After that, he became Finance Minister and didn’t leave the Althing until 1999, as the first deputy speaker of the Althing.

Minister of Justice

More recently, Iceland’s current Minister of Justice, Áslaug Arna Sigurbjörnsdóttir, became an MP in 2016 while she was still a student at UI. She was then 25 years old and had just begun her graduate studies in Law, having just finished her undergraduate degree in Law at UI in 2015.

In 2017, she was re-elected to the Althing and chaired the committee on foreign affairs. Two years later, she was tapped to become Minister of Justice.

“Áslaug is one of Iceland’s most promising politicians. She has entered parliament in full force and directed a big parliamentary committee with a secure and steady hand. She is therefore finely qualified for the office of Minister of Justice but at the same time it is exciting to let young people enter the frontline of politics,” said Bjarni Benediktsson, chairman of the Independence Party, of which Áslaug is a member when he tapped her for the position.

Presidential candidate

A law student at UI, Gunnar Thoroddsen, was elected to parliament in 1934 when he was 23 years old. For 69 years, he was the youngest person elected to the Althing. Gunnar Thoroddsen was one of the most famous politicians during the last century. He served as Mayor of Reykjavík, Prime Minister, Finance Minister, Iceland’s ambassador in Copenhagen and even ran for President.

Parliament is not so different from school

Gunnar’s record was beaten in 2013 when Jóhanna María Sigmundsdóttir, a student, became an elected MP. She was then 21 years and 303 days of age.

When Jóhanna María was elected, she was a graduated agriculturalist. In Parliament, she took a seat in the Judicial Affairs and Education Committee. Three years later, Jóhanna María decided not to run for reelection and to rather focus on her studies at Bifröst University instead.

“Being an MP is like starting a new school year every day,” she said to feykir.is after her term ended.

The youngest MP

Bjarni Halldór Janusson is now the youngest person to have been elected to the Althing. When he was elected, he was 21 years, 4 months and 19 days old. He was studying Political Science and Philosophy at the University of Iceland.

Bjarni Halldór sat in parliament from April to June 2017, as a substitute member of parliament for Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir. In tenth grade, he once jokingly said he would one day become Iceland’s youngest ever MP and soon after the joke became reality.

In eighth grade, Bjarni also jokingly said he would one day become president of the United States of America, but that joke will most likely never come to pass.

Bjarni Halldór recently finished his graduate degree in Political Philosophy at the University of York, UK.

The eternal MP

One of Iceland’s most experienced MPs and Speaker of the Althing, Steingrímur Jóhann Sigfússon, was also elected to parliament when he was a student at UI. Even though he was already 27 years old, he said of his first experience in the Althing: “I, the student and radical, felt I was entering another world in another time.”

Shortly after being elected to parliament, he said: “No one should sit in parliament for more than a few years at a time.” In spite of these words, he has been an MP for 37 years.

It might be hard to believe now, but when the Althing first came together at Þingvellir, there was no Steingrímur J. Sigfússon attendant.

Steingrímur’s declaration from 2004 has also become famous. He called the then Prime Minister, Davíð Oddson, a skank: “It shall therefore be said that Davíð Oddsson is such a coward and skank.”

Perhaps Steingrímur did not manage to offend the then Prime Minister but it could be said that he was inviting him to the first SlutWalk, even though the first SlutWalk was not held in Iceland until 2011.