Faroese elections

There are Faroese elections on Saturday, and the whole world is anxiously awaiting the results.

Participating parties, in descending order of votes according to the latest poll (January 2008) are...

• Tjóðveldi (Republican party, E) - 25.6%


• Sambandsflokkurin (Unionist party, B) - 25.3%


• Fólkaflokkurin (People's party, A) - 19.3%


• Javnaðarflokkurin (Labour party, C) - 16.1%


• Miðflokkurin (Centre party, H) - 6.1%


• Sjálvstýrisflokkurin (Home Rule party, D) - 6.0%


• Miðnámsflokkurin (Students' party, L) - 1.5%

In other words, nothing is going to happen. The unionists and the separationists are equally big, Denmark will continue to pay, and the Faroese will continue to build underwater tunnels and eat dried mutton with whale blubber and potatoes.

One of the main issues appears to be what is known as Grein 266b. This is such a big issue, that the other day, a leaflet was distributed door to door detailing the ‘Christian values’ of all the parties (see here, with the letters in the overview above being the key to the parties on the map). Unsurprisingly, Miðflokkurin is fully supportive of Christian values, while those evil heretics in Tjóðveldi are risking ‘a light and safe future for us all’. (That was the point of the leaflet, see here).

So what is Grein 266b? It is a paragraph in the penal code, and the whole fuss is about a proposed change for the paragraph to read, with addition in bold face,

§ 266 b. Den, der offentligt eller med forsæt til udbredelse i en videre kreds fremsætter udtalelse eller anden meddelelse, ved hvilken en gruppe af personer trues, forhånes eller nedværdiges på grund af sin race, hudfarve, nationale eller etniske oprindelse, tro eller seksuelle orientering, straffes med bøde, hæfte eller fængsel indtil 2 år.

Three things:

1. I'm assuming they want to change more than just the bit in bold, otherwise the current penal code would be severely ungrammatical;
2. I had no idea this was legal in the Faroes still;
3. The code is in Danish.