GREENLAND (3)

There were high hopes when Aleqa Hammond won the general election in March 2013 as the first female leader of the former colony. Today, 18 months later, Greenlandic politics are a mess.

The cause is a familiar one to students of colonial politics; money. It turns out that Ms. Hammond spent kr.106.363,27 of public funds on private flights and hotel bills for her family. The money has now been repaid, but only after repeated requests from the public auditor. On Tuesday, a vote of confidence was tabled in the national Parliament, which the Government only just won. Today, however, Ms. Hammond was ditched by her coalition partners, and resigned the leadership of her party. Fresh elections will be held on 28 November.

The amount involved (around £12,000) was not huge by the standards of other countries, but confirmed an impression amongst voters that politicians have their snouts in the trough. On Monday, one of Ms. Hammond's predecessors as leader resigned his Parliamentary seat, after it emerged that he too owed money to the state. Ms. Hammond had campaigned in 2013 on a promise to do away with all this sort of thing. The loss of credibility engendered by her behaviour was simply too great for her to remain in office.

For Greenland this is a disaster. The mooted investment boom in mineral extraction has been harder to realise than expected; while fishing (the lifeblood of many small towns and settlements) is in the doldrums. It is one thing for a former colony to want to stand on its own two feet, quite another for it to do so.

Walter Blotscher