Chill winds

Iceland first casualty of mostly pointless crusade

For a mostly frozen country that still has capital controls almost eight years after the financial crisis, Iceland hasn't been doing so badly. Consumer confidence and private-consumption growth are at their highest since 2007. In terms of corruption, Iceland is the 13th cleanest in the world - ranked alongside Australia by Transparency International.

Yet it is also the country hit first and hardest by the so-called Panama Papers leaks, which showed that Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson once owned half of an offshore company that held bonds issued by Iceland's bust banks. He resigned on April 5.

Why is Iceland the first domino to fall? It's not a coincidence. Support for Gunnlaugsson's Progressive Party is low, and has more than halved since he was elected in 2013, amid promises of greater transparency.

Iceland has recovered from its crisis, but trust remains low. And while the country remains relatively free from graft, the trend in terms of perceptions has been going the wrong way, according to the Heritage Foundation. That Gunnlaugsson's downfall involved assets stashed overseas, while Icelanders are still subject to restrictions on moving money abroad, adds an extra frisson.

What makes Iceland vulnerable, though, is what makes the Panama leaks so ultimately unhelpful. The state has a strong rule of law, and is a responsive democracy. Its parliament is one of the world's oldest. Voters expect better, and if they don't get it, they can make their views known.

Now consider China, where eight former and current leaders' families were also alleged to have held offshore vehicles by the papers. Access to news on the leaks has been restricted. Even were it not, it's hard to see what Chinese citizens would do about it. Corruption runs deep and remains engrained - as even President Xi Jinping admits.

More salacious details are sure to emerge. Relatives of the leaders of Britain, Ukraine and Pakistan were also mentioned by the recipients of the Panamanian data. But Iceland's early misfortune is likely to set the tone for the whole saga: however well intentioned, leaks tend to thwack the mostly good, and leave the genuinely corrupt largely untroubled.