People's Alliance (Iceland)

The People's Alliance (Icelandic: Alþýðubandalagið) was a electoral alliance in Iceland from 1956 to 1968 and a political party from 1968 to 1998.

In 1916 the Social Democratic Party (Alþýðuflokkurinn) was formed in Iceland. In 1930 a split surged, thus forming the Communist Party of Iceland (Kommúnistaflokkur Íslands), recognised as the Icelandic section of the Communist International. In 1937 the social democrats suffered another split, and the splintergroup unified itself with the communists forming the United People's Socialist Party (Sameiningarflokkur alþýðu, sósíalistaflokkurinn). However, the new party did not become a ComIntern member as its forerunner.

In 1956 the UPSP created an electoral alliance with yet another left-wing split of the Social Democratic Party, thus forming the People's Alliance In 1968 the People's Alliance was reorganized as a political party. In 1998 it joined forces with the Social Democrat Party, the Womens's Alliance (Samtök um kvennalista) and the National Movement (Þjóðvaki) in forming the Alliance (Samfylkingin), a broad center-left party. However the People's Alliance continues to exist on papers until its debts are paid.

The party was not a communist party, but it used to be the Icelandic referent of the World Communist Movement. It was opposed to NATO and the presence of U.S. military forces in Iceland. It was also opposed to Icelandic membership of the European Union and the EEA agreement in 1993 between the EFTA and the EU, Iceland being a member of EFTA.

Some members of the People's Alliance did not conciliate the forming of the Alliance, including some MPss of the party, and formed the Left-Green Movement (Vinstrihreyfingin - grænt framboð), a socialist-green party, in 1999. The first chairman of the People's Alliance was Ragnar Arnalds. The existent president of Iceland, Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, was chairman of the party from 1987 to 1995.

The youth league of the People's Alliance was known as ÆFAB.

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