Iceland's Independence Party leads parliamentary election: early results

Iceland's Independence Party, one of the two parties in the current centre-right ruling coalition, is leading the parliamentary election, according to early results published by Icelandic media on Sunday.

With 77,976 votes counted in Saturday's election, the Independence Party won 30.1 percent of the ballots cast, followed by the opposition Left-Green Movement with 16.5 percent.

The Pirate Party, which had taken the lead in many pre-election polls over the months, was close behind with 13.9 percent.

The newly-formed Vidreisn (Revival) Party was the fourth with 10.8 percent of the votes, while the centrist Progressive Party, the other ruling party, trailed with 9.2 percent.

The Bright Future and the Social Democratic Alliance also crossed the 5-percent electoral threshold needed to gain seats in the parliament, the early results showed.

However, it was still too early to say which party or parties would have the mandate to form the next government in the Nordic island country.

About 246,500 voters were eligible to vote in the election. Endi