In 1999, four
centre-left political parties (the
National Awakening, the
People's Alliance, the
Social Democratic Party and the
Women's List) agreed to form a joint run by all parties in the
1999 Icelandic parliamentary election. The vision of the party was to unite the
left-wing of Icelandic politics, which had been fractured since the 1930 split of the Social Democratic Party, and present a united bloc to oppose the ruling
Independence Party. The leader of the alliance at the 1999 election was
Margrét Frímannsdóttir. The alliance elected 17 MPs and finished second in terms of total votes, but still finished some way behind the dominant Independence Party. The parties then formally merged in May 2000 under the name The Alliance (
Samfylkingin). The first leader of the unified party was
Össur Skarphéðinsson. The merger was a deliberate attempt to unify the entire Icelandic
centre-left into one political party capable of countering the
centre-right Independence Party. However, the initial attempt failed as a group of
Althing representatives rejected the new party's platform, which was inspired by that of UK Prime Minister
Tony Blair's
centrist New Labour, and broke away before the merger to found the
Left-Green Movement, a party based on more traditional
democratic socialist values as well as
Euroscepticism and
green politics. In the
2003 parliamentary election, the party improved on its 1999 showing, electing 20 MPs and finishing with just 3% less of the total vote share than the Independence Party. The party fell back some in the
2007 Icelandic parliamentary election under
Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir, winning 18 seats, as the Left-Green Movement began eating into their left-leaning voter base. However, the Alliance did enter government for the first time after the 2007 election, forming a
grand coalition in supporting the government of Independence Party Prime Minister
Geir Haarde. The Alliance received the portfolios for the Ministries of
Commerce,
Foreign Affairs,
Social Affairs,
Communications,
Industry, and the
Environment. The
Icelandic Movement – Living Country merged into the party in March 2009. In the snap
2009 parliamentary election called in the aftermath of the
Icelandic financial crisis, the Social Democratic Alliance under the leadership of
Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir emerged as the largest party and formed a
coalition government with the
Left-Green Movement, which was the country's first majority left-wing government. She was the country’s first female prime minister and the world’s first openly gay head of government. In February 2013, the official name of the party was changed to The Alliance – Social Democratic Party of Iceland (). The party lost substantial support in the
2013 parliamentary election, its first under new leader
Árni Páll Árnason who replaced Jóhanna in February of that year. The party fell from first to third largest in
Alþingi. It fell back further at the
2016 parliamentary election, under new leader
Oddný G. Harðardóttir, where it polled 5.7% and elected only three MPs. Oddný resigned after the election, and was replaced by
Logi Már Einarsson. In 2014, it became the largest party in the
Reykjavík City Council, and party member
Dagur B. Eggertsson became mayor. Since 2018 it has been the second largest party in the City Council after the
Independence Party, but the Alliance is part of the governing coalition of
Progressive Party mayor . In the
2017 parliamentary election, the party rebounded some by winning seven seats on 12.1% of the vote. However, the party lost one of their seats and received 9.9% of the vote in the
2021 parliamentary election. Logi led the party in both of these elections, becoming the first Alliance leader to contest two elections. He stepped down after the disappointing results in 2021, and was replaced by
Kristrún Frostadóttir in 2022, who remains the current chair of the party. In the
2024 parliamentary election under new leader Kristrún, the party won 15 seats on 20.8% of the vote, the largest party in both seats and vote share. President
Halla Tómasdóttir gave the Social Democratic Alliance the first mandate to form a government, and Kristrún became Prime Minister in a government led by the Social Democratic Alliance and supported by
Viðreisn and the
People's Party. With Kristrún as Prime Minister and Halla as President, it was the first time in history Iceland had women in both offices simultaneously. == Election results ==