Sydney Morning Herald, 6 March 2010 (AFP)
Icelanders trickled in to polling stations on Saturday for what was set to be a clear rejection of a bank repayment deal worth billions of US dollars (euros) that many here consider a foreign diktat.
"I will vote 'no' simply because I disagree very strongly with us... having to shoulder this burden" from the 2008 collapse of the online Icesave bank, Ingimar Gudmundsson, a 57-year-old truck driver, told AFP.
Some 230,000 Icelanders are eligible to vote in Saturday's referendum and the first results should start coming in shortly after polls close at 2200 GMT, with final results later in the night.
The issue is whether Iceland should honour an agreement to repay Britain and the Netherlands 3.9 billion euros (5.3 billion US dollars).
This would be to compensate them for money they paid to 340,000 of their citizens hit by the collapse of Icesave in 2008.
According to the latest opinion poll, three quarters of voters will reject the agreement, which was passed by parliament in late December.
