The main opposition party in Greenland has won a major victory in yesterday’s historic elections held just before the country transforms from ‘Home Rule’ to ‘Self Rule’ on 21 June, Sermitsiaq reports.
The leftist Inuit Ataqatigiit (Eskimo Brotherhood) took a 43.7 percent share of the vote, which is nearly double what it got in 2005.
The winning IA party favours independence from Denmark, but it favours a slower separation than the previous governing Siumut Party. Yesterday’s election represents the biggest shift in Greenlandic politics in 30 years.
A shift to Greenlandic as the official language is just one of the 32 new areas of control Self Rule will bring to Greenland. The political change will also bring greater control of the island’s mineral and petrochemical resources.
Inuit Ataqatigiit (IA), led by Kuupik Kleist, has 14 seats in the 31-member parliament, and has already expressed its desire not to enter into a coalition with Siumut, although it will clearly need at least one partner in order to hold a majority.
Greenland and Denmark have agreed to split oil and gas revenues between them – although full scale exploitation remains years away and Greenland still relies on Danish subsidies for around a third of its GDP.
(Photo: ag.gl)
nice result … anybody any idea which party is most likely to support an Inuit Ataqatigiit led government?