Iceland’s openly lesbian caretaker prime minister, Johanna Sigurdardottir, will keep her post after Saturday’s national elections that saw her center-left coalition capture 35 of 63 seats in parliament.  Sigurdardottir becomes the world’s first elected openly gay head of government.

A New York Times report said Icelanders were ready for dramatic change after the country’s economic near-meltdown:

If the final results bear out the early tally, the swing in public opinion would elect a leftist government to power for the first time in the modern history of the Althingi — the Parliament, which Icelanders claim to be the world’s oldest continuous legislature — along with the prospect of a four-year term.

It would also confirm a remarkable turnaround in the political fortunes of Johanna Sigurdardottir, the 66-year-old caretaker prime minister, who is the first woman to lead Iceland’s government. Only months ago, before January’s turmoil, she was readying herself for retirement after 30 years in politics and was widely seen as too feisty, and even too left wing, to rise beyond a series of midlevel coalition cabinet appointments.

Ms. Sigurdardottir is notable, too, for being the first openly declared lesbian to lead a government in the modern world, though her sexual orientation was never a significant election issue. What Icelanders say they like about her, as much as anything, is the way in which she embodies everything the New Vikings did not: a quiet, steady personality uncomfortable with the public spotlight, who chose to stay away earlier this month from aNATO summit meeting in Europe, where she would have met President Obama and other Western leaders for the first time.

Photo:  Olivier Morin/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images