Jens Garðar Helgason (born 15 December 1976) is an Icelandic politician. He is a member of the

Icelandic Parliament The (; ), anglicised as Althingi or Althing, is the supreme national parliament of Iceland. It is the oldest surviving parliament in the world. The Althing was founded in 930 at (' thing fields' or 'assembly fields'), about east of what lat ...

for the Independence Party after leading list in the

Northeast constituency Northeast () is one of the six multi-member constituencies of the Althing, the national legislature of Iceland. The constituency was established in 2003 following the re-organisation of constituencies across Iceland when the Northeastern const ...

for the

2024 Icelandic parliamentary election Parliamentary elections were held in Iceland on 30 November 2024 to elect the 63 members of the Althing. The centre-left Social Democratic Alliance, led by Kristrún Frostadóttir, outperformed the ruling Independence Party to win the most seat ...

. Jens was born and raised in

Eskifjörður Eskifjörður (in original spelling; ), or Eskifjördur, is a town and port in eastern Iceland with a large fishing industry. With a population of 1,043 it is one of the most populous towns in the municipality of Fjarðabyggð. History Eskifjör� ...

. He was a student at

Akureyri Junior College The Akureyri Junior College ( , regionally also ; ) is an Icelandic gymnasium (academic secondary school). It is one of the oldest educational institutions in Iceland. The Menntaskólinn á Akureyri traces its roots to the ancient school in H ...

, studied business administration at the

University of Iceland The University of Iceland ( ) is a public research university in Reykjavík, Iceland, and the country's oldest and largest institution of higher education. Founded in 1911, it has grown steadily from a small civil servants' school to a modern co ...

and holds an MBA from the

Norwegian School of Economics The Norwegian School of Economics () or NHH is a business school situated in Bergen, Norway. It was founded in 1936 as Norway's first business school and is the leading teaching and research institution in Norway for the fields of management and ...

. Jens was chairman of the

Fjarðabyggð Fjarðabyggð () is a municipality located in eastern Iceland, in the Eastern Region. History The municipality was formed in 1998 with the union of the former municipalities of Eskifjörður, Neskaupstaður and Reyðarfjörður. Austurbyggð, ...

municipal council from 2010 to 2018, he was chairman of the from 2014 to 2020 and vice chairman of the from 2017 to 2020. Jens ran for the first place for the Independence Party for the

and performed better than the incumbent leader of the party in the constituency,

Njáll Trausti Friðbertsson Njáll Trausti Friðbertsson (born 31 December 1969) is an Icelandic Independence Party politician. He was elected to the Althing in 2016, by the Northeast constituency. In 1994, Njáll won Draumaliðsdeildin, the Icelandic fantasy football com ...

, when ranked first on the candidate list at the constituency assembly on 20 October 2024. He was elected deputy chair of the Independence Party in early March 2025.

References

See also