Iceland PM resigns amid Panama Papers scandal, official says

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Fox News:

The prime minister of Iceland resigned Tuesday amid reports that he and his wife set up an offshore company with the help of a Panamanian law firm at the center of a massive tax evasion leak, representing the first world leader to step down in the Panama Papers scandal, a government official told local media.

 

Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson had denied doing anything illegal and said he paid all taxes. Opponents argue his company, set up in the British Virgin Islands, represents a severe conflict of interest because it held investments in failed Icelandic banks that his government was responsible for overseeing.

 

Agriculture Minister Sigurdur Ingi Johannsson told Icelandic broadcaster RUV that Gunnlaugsson would step down as leader of the country's coalition government. Iceland's president Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson has not yet confirmed he has accepted the resignation.

 

Reports drawn from 11.5 million leaked documents and released over the weekend detailed how and where politicians, businesses and celebrities hide their wealth. The reports by an international coalition of media outlets working with the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists are based on documents from the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca, one of the world's biggest creators of shell companies.

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Panamanian domino effect?

[Valin]

Welcome to the XXIst century.

[Valin]

The Rise of the Pirate Party
Michael J Totten
Apr. 11 2016

After the release of the so-called Panama Papers led to the downfall of Iceland’s prime minister, the Pirate Party is poised to take his place in the next election. In a multi-party nation, 43 percent of voters are now backing the Pirates.

They sound dangerous, but they’re not named after the murderous brigands off the Horn of Africa and in the South China Sea. The Pirates are basically a libertarian protest party, and they’re capitalizing on a wave of anti-establishment outrage.

Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson resigned last week when a law firm in Panama City revealed that he and his wife set up a company in the British Virgin Islands that allegedly has a conflict of interest with Icelandic banks. Gunnlaugsson’s Progressive Party—which is actually center-right and classically liberal rather than leftist—is in disarray and will likely collapse, at least temporarily.

(Snip)

There were warnings. The anti-establishment mood on the right began with the Tea Party, and on the left with Occupy Wall Street. Pirate Parties have been popping up all over the place, mostly under the radar, in the meantime. Syriza, of course, is a product of problems unique to Greece, which are so catastrophic that hardly anyone will be surprised if the European Union sends it packing.

We shouldn’t read too much into what’s happening in any one place. Every country has its own unique set of problems, and Iceland is hardly representative of anywhere else. There are more people in Omaha, Nebraska, than in all of Iceland.

Still, no one can say that it’s business as usual right now in the politics of the Western Democracies. What the landscape might look like ten or twenty years after an international and trans-ideological spasm of anger and disgust is anyone’s guess.