First Results of Icelandic Parl't Elections: Pirate Party in Second Place

The Pirate Party, with 18 percent of the votes, is at the second place in the parliamentary elections in Iceland that finished at 10:00 p.m. local time (10:00 GMT) on Saturday, according to the media reports.

REYKJAVIK (Sputnik) — The first results indicate that the Pirate Party, with 18 percent of the votes, is trailing the Independence Party that has so far secured 27.1 percent of the votes, while the Left-Green Movement is the third at 16.4 percent, Icelandic National Broadcasting Service (RUV) reported.

The voters' turnout reportedly reached about 60 percent, but the definitive percentage as well as the results of the vote are not available yet.

The elections to the Icelandic parliament were originally scheduled for May 2017 and moved up to help the country escape the political turmoil that it was plunged into after the release of the Panama Papers revealing corruption in Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson’s government.

The Pirate Party, who gained two seats in the 2013 elections, saw its standing in the polls buoyed by the public's distrust of the government and search for the alternative in the run-up to the Saturday vote.