Social Democratic Alliance

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The Social Democratic Alliance (Samfylkingin) is a political party in Iceland. It is social democratic in alignment and currently forms a new coalition government. It was born in the run-up to the parliamentary elections of 1999 as an alliance of the four left-wing parties that had existed in Iceland up till then: the Social Democratic Party (Alþýðuflokkurinn), the People's Alliance (Alþýðubandalagið), the Womens's Alliance (Samtök um kvennalista) and the National Movement (Þjóðvaki). The parties then formally merged in May 2000. The merger was a deliberate attempt to unify the entire centre left of Icelandic politics into one party capable of countering the right-wing Independence Party. The initial attempt failed however as a group of Alþingi representatives rejected the new party's platform – which was inspired by that of Tony Blair's New Labour Party – and broke away before the merger to found the Left-Green Movement (Vinstrihreyfingin - grænt framboð), based on more socialist values as well as environmental issues.

The current chairman of the party, since 2005, is Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir, a former mayor of Reykjavík. Ágúst Ólafur Ágústsson is vice chairman.

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