Early general elections were held in the

Faroe Islands The Faroe Islands ( ), or simply the Faroes ( fo, Føroyar ; da, Færøerne ), are a North Atlantic island group and an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. They are located north-northwest of Scotland, and about halfway bet ...

on 8 December 2022.Faroese Minister Fired After Statements Against Queer People
High North News, 10 November 2022 The opposition

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties For ...

led by former Prime Minister

Aksel V. Johannesen Aksel Vilhelmsson Johannesen (born 8 November 1972 in Klaksvík, Faroe Islands) is a Faroese lawyer and politician for the Social Democratic Party (Javnaðarflokkurin) and the current prime minister of the Faroe Islands and also served as prime ...

emerged as the largest party, receiving the largest vote share of any party since

1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of Humankind, humanity on Earth, Astroph ...

, while

Self-Government __NOTOC__ Self-governance, self-government, or self-rule is the ability of a person or group to exercise all necessary functions of regulation without intervention from an external authority. It may refer to personal conduct or to any form of ...

lost its Løgting representation for the first time since

1945 1945 marked the end of World War II and the fall of Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan. It is also the only year in which nuclear weapons have been used in combat. Events Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix. Januar ...

Background

Following the 2019 general elections a coalition government was formed by Union Party leader

Bárður á Steig Nielsen Bárður á Steig Nielsen (; born 16 April 1972) is a Faroese politician and businessman who serves as leader of the Union Party since 2015 and was prime minister from 2019 to 2022. He is also goalkeeper of the VÍF Vestmanna handball team and ...

, consisting of the Union Party, the People's Party and the Centre Party, which together won 17 of the 33 seats. During the campaign for the November 2022 Danish general election, Centre Party leader and Faroese Minister of Foreign Affairs

Jenis av Rana Jenis Kristian av Rana (born 7 January 1953 in Trongisvágur) is a Faroese medical practitioner and politician, serving as leader of the Centre Party since 2001. He served as minister of Foreign Affairs and Culture of the Faroe Islands from 201 ...

stated that he could not support

Søren Pape Poulsen Søren Pape Poulsen (born 31 December 1971) is a Danish politician, who is a member of the Folketing for the Danish Conservative Party. He has been the leader of the party since 2014. From 2016 to 2019 he served as Justice Minister of Denmark, an ...

, the leader of the Conservative People's Party, becoming Prime Minister of Denmark as Poulsen is gay. The opposition parties in the

Løgting The Løgting (pronounced ; da, Lagtinget) is the unicameral parliament of the Faroe Islands, an autonomous territory within the Danish Realm. The name literally means "''Law Thing''"—that is, a law assembly—and derives from Old Norse ''l ...

planned to call a motion of no confidence on 8 November, but Faroese Prime Minister

sacked av Rana the same day. The Centre Party subsequently withdrew from the government, resulting in it losing its majority and Nielsen calling early elections.

Electoral system

The 33 members of the Løgting were elected by

open list Open list describes any variant of party-list proportional representation where voters have at least some influence on the order in which a party's candidates are elected. This is as opposed to closed list, which allows only active members, par ...

proportional representation Proportional representation (PR) refers to a type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to geographical (e.g. states, regions) and political divis ...

in a single nationwide constituency with an electoral threshold of of votes (%). Seats were allocated using the

largest remainder method The largest remainder method (also known as Hare–Niemeyer method, Hamilton method or as Vinton's method) is one way of allocating seats proportionally for representative assemblies with party list voting systems. It contrasts with various h ...

Opinion polls

Opinion polling for the 2022 Faroese legislative election

Results

Aftermath

On 22 December 2022,

was elected prime minister of a coalition governement between Social Democratic, Republic and Progress.

References

{{Faroese elections Elections in the Faroe Islands

Faroes The Faroe Islands ( ), or simply the Faroes ( fo, Føroyar ; da, Færøerne ), are a North Atlantic island group and an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. They are located north-northwest of Scotland, and about halfway betw ...