Sig­mundur Davíð Gunn­laugs­son lagði aðeins til að Sig­urður Ingi Jóhanns­son tæki við for­sæt­is­ráðu­neyt­inu í „óá­kveð­inn tíma.“ Hann hefur ekki sagt af sér og mun halda áfram sem for­maður flokks­ins. Þetta kemur fram í tölvu­pósti til erlendra blaða­manna sem Ric­hard Mil­ne, blaða­maður Fin­ancial Times á Norð­ur­lönd­un­um, birtir á Twitt­er-­síðu sinni. Þessar upp­lýs­ingar eru einnig komnar inn í frétt Fin­ancial Times um mál­ið, eins og sjá má hér. 

Póst­ur­inn kom frá Sig­urði Má Jóns­syni, upp­lýs­inga­full­trúa rík­is­stjórn­ar­inn­ar. Kjarn­inn hefur fengið póst­inn áfram­sendan og hann má lesa hér að neð­an. Kjarn­inn hefur einnig sent skila­boð á Sig­urð Má vegna máls­ins. Hann hefur ekki svar­að, en á vef RÚV er vitnað í Jóhannes Þór Skúla­son, aðstoð­ar­mann Sig­mundar Dav­íðs, sem segir ekk­ert óljóst í þess­ari til­kynn­ingu. Sig­urður Ingi sé for­sæt­is­ráð­herra í ótil­greindan tíma, sem geti þýtt fram að næstu kosn­ing­um. Það að for­sæt­is­ráð­herra hafi ekki sagt af sér sé líka rétt, hann sé enn starf­andi for­sæt­is­ráð­herra þangað til hann skili umboði sínu til for­seta Íslands.

Fréttin hefur verið upp­færð með við­brögðum Jóhann­esar Þórs.

Today the Prime Mini­ster of Iceland Sig­mundur David Gunn­laugs­son has sug­ge­sted to the Progressive Party Parli­ament­ary group that the Progressive Party Vice-Chairman take over the office of Prime Mini­ster for an unspecified amount of time. The Prime Mini­ster has not resigned and will cont­inue to serve as Chairman of the Progressive Par­ty.

The Prime Minster is very proud of the success of his Govern­ment’s policies that have resulted in the resur­rect­ion of Iceland’s economy, an unprecedented rise in purchasing power, record low inflation and a general improvem­ent in liv­ing stand­ards for the Icelandic people.

The Prime Mini­ster is especi­ally proud of his Govern­ment’s hand­ling of Iceland´s situ­ation with the creditors of the failed Icelandic banks. The Prime Mini­ster has devoted much of his time in polit­ics to the chal­lenge of resol­v­ing the dramatic balance of pay­ment problem Iceland faced due to bank­ing crisis in 2008. If the creditors of the failed banks, which were nine times the size of the economy, had been all­owed to take their claims and exit Iceland with for­eign cur­rency, it would have had a devest­a­ting impact on the stand­ard of liv­ing for Iceland­ers. Instead the Prime Mini­ster and his Govern­ment were able to bring to the table a solution which will have an except­ionally positive impact on the Icelandic economy. The net positive impact to the Icelandic economy is more than three billion GBP, or a quarter of Iceland´s GDP. The net external position of Iceland has never been as good as now.    

These facts are acknowled­ged by international experts, inclu­ding Lee Buchheit, the Govern­ment’s advisor on capi­tal account liber­alization and a world ren­ow­ned aut­hority on sover­eign debt reconstruct­ion, who said in a recent interview that the result achi­eved in sett­ling the failed banks’ estates is unprecedented in world fin­ancial history and that this outcome could by no means have been expect­ed.

The Prime Mini­ster’s act­ion ref­lects his wish to not stand in the way of the import­ant issues that still remain on the Govern­ment’s agenda being fin­is­hed in this term, issues like hous­ing reform and the reform of the fin­ancial system that he will cont­inue to fight for in the inter­est of the Icelandic people.  

In recent weeks, the Prime Mini­ster and his wife have provided detailed answers to questions about the assets of the PM’s wife. They have never sought to hide these assets from Icelandic tax aut­horities and these hold­ings in Wintris have been reported as an asset on the Prime Mini­ster’s wife’s income tax ret­urns since 2008 and taxes have been paid accor­dingly in Iceland. No Parli­ament­ary rules on disclos­ure have been bro­ken. Even The Guar­dian and other media cover­ing the story have con­firmed that they have not seen any evidence to sug­gest that the Prime Mini­ster, his wife, or Wintris enga­ged in any act­ions invol­v­ing tax avoi­dance, tax evasion, or any dis­ho­nest fin­ancial gain.

As up until now, the Icelandic Govern­ment cont­inues to use every option availa­ble to prevent tax avoi­dance.