Iceland Narrowly Misses Electing Europe's First Female-Majority Parliament

A surprise vote recount deprived Iceland of forming Europe's first female-majority parliament.

Iceland almost created history in gender parity by electing Europe's first female-majority parliament. The celebrations, however, were brief as a late recount showed that it had just fallen short of that milestone.

The initial vote count showed that women had won 33 seats (52 percent) in Iceland's 63-seats parliament, the Althing. A few hours later, a recount in Western Iceland changed the tally to 30 seats, which make up 47.6 percent women in the parliament, as per a Reuters report.

According to RUV, the recount was called because very few votes separated the parties contending for the one equalisation seat of the constituency. The miscount had a huge impact on the rest of the country.