Tuesday, June 09, 2009

Greenland Pro Independence Party Wins Election

Greenland's pro-independence leftist party Inuit Ataqatigiit, which won the Danish territory's legislative election on June 2, has agreed to form a coalition with two centrist parties, it said Sunday.

The three parties will hold a majority with 19 of 31 seats in the local parliament, the Landsting, IA leader Kuupik Kleist said in a statement.

IA, which ousted the social democratic Siumut party after 30 years in power, will hold 14 seats, the Democrats four seats and the Kattusseqatigiit Partiiat one seat.

Even though Siumut and IA had served in a coalition together as recently as 2007, Kleist had ruled out forming an alliance with Siumut after it became embroiled in a slew of scandals in recent months.

Final details still needed to be worked out on the government coalition and the cabinet portfolios were to be divided up Monday, Greenlandic radio KNR reported.


This is something I've not seen in my light cone of the blogosphere. I'm surprised at least Randy didn't pick it up. I really wonder what the economic prospects of an independent Greenland would be. After all, they receive a nontrivial amount of subsidies - more than half a billion, for 60k people!!! - from Denmark at this point and presumably that'd go away. Oh the other hand, lots of natural resources are becoming more accessible. Is it worth half a billion in subsidies though?

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