Lilja Dögg Alfreðsdóttir Elected as First Female Chair of the Progressive Party
Last weekend, Lilja Dögg Alfreðsdóttir — former MP and minister — was elected as the new head of the Framsóknarflokkurinn, better known as the Progressive Party. She took 58 percent of the vote, making her the first woman ever to hold the position in the party’s history.
She is not, however, the first woman to have led it. Valgerður Sverrisdóttir, who served as vice chair from 1995 to 1999, stepped in to run the party on a temporary basis after Guðni Ágústsson’s resignation — placing her second on that particular list.
Lilja has been part of the party’s inner circle for some time. She has held the vice chair role since 2016 and served as culture minister until 2024, a period that included one of the party’s roughest stretches — a significant loss of seats in the Alþingi elections that year.
Her main challenger for the chair was Ingibjörg Isaksen, a sitting Progressive Party MP and the parliamentary party leader.
Outgoing party leader Sigurður Ingi Jóhannesson said the result was more or less what he had anticipated, and stressed that a clear majority for Lilja was the right outcome. For the Framsóknarflokkurinn, it is a genuine turning point — and a notable shift in how the party presents itself going forward.
