Social Democratic Alliance
Which political party did Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir belong to in Sep 2000?
Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir ( ; born 4 October 1942 ) is an Icelandic politician and the former Prime Minister of Iceland . She became active in the trade union movement , serving as an officer . Elected as an MP from 1978 to 2013 , she was appointed as Icelands Minister of Social Affairs and Social Security , serving from 1987 to 1994 , and from 2007 until 2009 . In 1994 , when she lost a bid to head the Social Democratic Party , she raised her fist and declared Minn tími mun koma ! ( My time will come! ) , a phrase that became a popular Icelandic expression . She became Prime Minister on 1 February 2009 , Icelands first female Prime Minister and the worlds first openly LGBT head of government . Forbes listed her among the 100 most powerful women in the world . She has been a member of the Althing ( Icelands parliament ) for Reykjavík constituencies since 1978 , winning re-election on eight successive occasions . In September 2012 , Jóhanna announced she would not seek re-election and retired from politics as Icelands longest serving member of Parliament . Education and early career . Jóhanna was born in Reykjavík . Her father is Sigurður Egill Ingimundarson . She studied at the Commercial College of Iceland , a vocational high school operated by the Chamber of Commerce . After graduating with her commercial diploma in 1960 , she worked as a flight attendant with Icelandic Airlines ( a predecessor of Icelandair ) from 1962 to 1971 , and as an office manager from 1971 to 1978 . She was active in the trade union movement from early in her professional life , presiding over the Board of the Icelandic Cabin Crew Association in 1966 and 1969 and over the Board of Svölurnar , Association of Former Stewardesses in 1975 . She was also a member of the Board of the Commercial Workers Union from 1976 to 1983 . Political career . Jóhanna was elected to the Althing in 1978 on the list of the Social Democratic Party for the Reykjavík constituency . She enjoyed early success in her parliamentary career , serving as deputy speaker of the Althing ( Icelands parliament ) in 1979 and in 1983–84 . She was elected vice-chairman of the Social Democratic Party in 1984 , a post she held until 1993 . She was also Minister of Social Affairs in four separate Cabinets from 1987 to 1994 , when she left the Social Democratic Party after losing the leadership contest to form a new party , National Awakening ; the two parties remerged in 2000 to form the present Social Democratic Alliance . Her 1994 declaration Minn tími mun koma ! ( My time will come! ) , after she lost the contest for the leadership of the Social Democratic party , has become an iconic phrase in the Icelandic language . From 1994 to 2003 , she was an active member of the opposition in the Althing , serving on numerous parliamentary committees . After the 2003 elections , in which she stood in the Reykjavík South constituency ( after the split of the old Reykjavík constituency ) , she was re-elected deputy speaker of the Althing . The 2007 elections , in which she stood in the Reykjavík North constituency , saw the return of the Social Democratic Alliance to government in coalition with the Independence Party , and Jóhanna was named Minister of Social Affairs and Social Security . Prime Minister . Icelandic financial crisis , protests and elections . On 26 January 2009 , Prime Minister Geir Haarde tendered the coalition governments resignation to the President of Iceland , Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson . The move followed fourteen weeks of protests over the governments handling of the financial crisis , protests that had intensified from 20 January . After talks with the leaders of the five parties represented in the Althing , the President asked the Social Democratic Alliance and the Left-Green Movement to form a new government and to prepare for elections in the spring . Jóhanna was proposed as Prime Minister for the new government ; two reasons for this were her popularity among the general public and her good relations with the Left-Green Movement . An opinion poll by Capacent Gallup in December 2008 found 73% approval of her actions as a minister , more than any other member of the Cabinet : she was also the only minister to have improved her approval ratings over 2008 . The new government needed the support of the Progressive Party in the Althing . Negotiations continued up to the evening of 31 January , and the new Cabinet was appointed on 1 February . Independent polling showed that Jóhanna and Steingrímur J . Sigfússon , leader of the Left-Green Movement , the other party in the coalition government , enjoyed considerable support outside their own parties . On 25 April 2009 , a parliamentary election was held in Iceland , following the protests now known as the Kitchenware Revolution that resulted from the Icelandic financial crisis . The Social Democratic Alliance and the Left-Green Movement , which formed the outgoing coalition government under Jóhanna , both made gains and together had an overall majority of seats in the Althing . The Progressive Party also made gains , and the new Citizens Movement , formed after the January 2009 protests , gained four seats . The Independence Party , which had been in power for eighteen years until January 2009 , lost a third of its support and nine seats in the Althing . On 10 May 2009 , the new government was announced , with Jóhanna staying on as Prime Minister . Overcoming the financial crisis . There were several referenda to decide about the Icesave Icelandic bank debts , center of the countrys financial crisis . The first Icesave referendum ( ) , was held on 6 March 2010 . The proposal was resoundingly defeated , with 93% voting against and less than 2% in favor . After the referendum , new negotiations commenced . On 16 February 2011 , the Althing agreed to a repayment deal to pay back the full amount starting in 2016 , finalising before 2046 , with a fixed interest rate of 3% . The Icelandic president once again refused to sign the new deal on 20 February , calling for a new referendum . Thus , a second referendum would be held on 9 April 2011 also resulting in no victory with a lesser percentage . After the referendum failed to pass , the British and Dutch governments said that they would take the case to the European courts . At a session on 28 September 2010 , the Althing voted 33–30 to indict the former Prime Minister Geir Haarde , but not the other ministers , on charges of negligence in office . He stood trial before the Landsdómur , a special court to hear cases alleging misconduct in government office , used for the first time since it was established in the 1905 Constitution . He was convicted of one charge . New Icelandic constitution process . Once in power , the left coalition led by Jóhanna—comprising the Social Democratic Alliance , the Left-Green Movement , the Progressive Party and the Liberal Party—inspired largely by the citizen protests , agreed to convene a constitutional assembly to discuss changes to the Constitution , in use since 1905 . Taking its cue from nationwide protests and lobbying efforts by civil organisations , the new governing parties decided that Icelands citizens should be involved in creating a new constitution and started to debate a bill on 4 November 2009 about that purpose . Parallel to the protests and parliament deliverance , citizens started to unite in grassroots-based think-tanks . A National Forum was organised on 14 November 2009 , Þjóðfundur 2009 , in the form of an assembly of Icelandic citizens at the Laugardalshöll in Reykjavík , by a group of grassroots citizen movements collectively called the Anthill . 1,500 people were invited to participate in the assembly ; of these , 1,200 were chosen at random from the national registry . On 16 June 2010 the Constitutional Act was finally accepted by parliament and a new Forum was summoned . The Constitutional Act prescribed that the participants of the Forum had to be randomly sampled from the National Population Register . The Forum 2010 came into being due to the efforts of both governing parties and the Anthill group . A seven-member Constitutional Committee , appointed by the parliament , was charged with the supervision of the forum and the presentation of its results , while the organization and facilitation of the National Forum 2010 was done by the Anthill group that had organized the first Forum 2009 . The process continued in the election of 25 people of no political affiliation on 26 October 2010 . The Supreme Court of Iceland later invalidated the results of the election on 25 January 2011 following complaints about several faults in how the election was conducted , but the Parliament decided that it was the manner of the election , and not the results , that had been questioned , and also that those 25 elected candidates would be a part of a Constitutional Council and thus the Constitutional change went on . On 29 July 2011 the draft was presented to the Parliament , which finally agreed in a vote on 24 May 2012 , with 35 in favor and 15 against , to organize an advisory referendum on the Constitutional Councils proposal for a new constitution no later than 20 October 2012 . The only opposing parliament members were the former governing right party , the Independence Party . Also a proposed referendum on the discontinuing of accession talks with the European Union by some parliamentarians of the governing left coalition was rejected , with 34 votes against and 25 in favor . Womens rights and ban on striptease . In 2010 , her government banned strip clubs , paying for nudity in restaurants , and other means of employers profiting from employees nudity – the first such ban in a Western democratic country . Jóhanna commented : The Nordic countries are leading the way on womens equality , recognizing women as equal citizens rather than commodities for sale . Responding to the policy change radical feminist Julie Bindel , writing for The Guardian , stated that Iceland had become the most feminist country in the world . Asked what the most important gender issue today is , she answered To fight the pay gap between men and women . Personal life . Jóhanna married Þorvaldur Steinar Jóhannesson in 1970 and the couple had two sons named Sigurður Egill Þorvaldsson and Davíð Steinar Þorvaldsson ( born 1972 and 1977 ) . After their divorce in 1987 , she joined in a civil union with Jónína Leósdóttir ( born 1954 ) , an author and playwright , in 2002 . In 2010 , when same-sex marriage was legalised in Iceland , Jóhanna and Jónína changed their civil union into a marriage , thus becoming one of the first same-sex married couples in Iceland . In 2017 , she released a biography entitled Minn tími ( My Time ) . The biography covers one of the most contentious periods in Icelandic history - from the financial crash of autumn 2008 , through protests and emergency elections the following year , and the difficult recovery period that followed leading Icelands first left wing government .