Høgni Hoydal


Høgni Karsten Hoydal, commonly called Høgni Hoydal, is a Faroese politician, who served as Minister of Fisheries and deputy prime minister from 2015 to 2019. He has been the party leader of Tjóðveldi since 1998.

Before taking office

Høgni Hoydal was a reporter of the Faroese national television station, Kringvarp Føroya, for some years prior to his election to the Faroese parliament in 1998.

Political career

Høgni Hoydal brought the Republican Party back up from four MPs to eight in the 1998 elections and into government, due to popular opinion at the time. Høgni Hoydal became Minister of Justice and deputy Prime Minister.
The coalition stayed in power after the parliamentary elections in 2002 and brought one more political party into the coalition and government. This coalition, however, broke down on 5 December 2003 and new elections held. After these elections another coalition was formed leaving the Republican Party in opposition.
In 2008, Hoydal assumed the position of Minister of Foreign Affairs. The government coalition between the Republican Party, the People's Party and the Independence Party agreed on a road map towards independence and initiated negotiations with the Government of Denmark. The negotiations, however, broke down and the Faroese coalition started going on a path towards greater autonomy by taking over the responsibility of matters previously undertaken by Denmark.
In 2001, he was elected as one of the two Faroese members of the Danish Folketing. He was re-elected in 2005 and re-elected again in 2007; but in the 2011 election lost the party's only Folketing seat to the Social Democrats' Sjúrður Skaale.

The Hoydal family

The family name Hoydal takes name after a neighbourhood in Tórshavn named Hoydalar, it is in a valley near Hoyvík. Dánjal Hoydal was the first who took the name, he was Høgni Hoydal's great grandfather, he was born Joensen. His son was the Faroese writer and politician Karsten Hoydal who was born in Hoydalar. Karsten Hoydal and his wife Marie Louise Falk-Rønne have four children: Annika Hoydal, born 1945, is an actor and singer, Gunnar Hoydal, born 1941 is also a writer, Kjartan Hoydal, born 1941 was secretary of the North East Atlantic Fisheries Commission and is now director of sp/f Skrivarastova Fish and Film. They have another son called Egil. Høgni Hoydal is Kjartan Hoydal's son.