Greenland's left-wing opposition Inuit Ataqatigiit (Community of the People) has won the island's parliamentary elections in a landslide, the Home Rule office announced June 3. The elections focused on a corruption scandal within the ruling Siumut Party, which lost its hold on power for the first time since home rule was achieved from Denmark in 1979. The vote is notable because it is the first election before Greenland gains enhanced home-rule powers from Denmark on June 21, which will expand the number of policy areas Greenland is in charge of, including police and justice affairs. Greenland's forthcoming expanded autonomy opens the possibility of competition for influence over the world's largest island by other Arctic powers, which will vie for access to the shipping lanes around Greenland and to potentially significant hydrocarbon resources. Even though mostly covered by ice year round, Greenland is strategically located in the North Atlantic between North America and Europe. Its southern regions protrude into the North Atlantic's shipping lanes, and are part of the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom (GIUK) gap. GIUK was one of the most significant naval chokepoints of the Cold War, through which NATO monitored movements of the Soviet naval fleet. Greenland also houses a major U.S. Air Force installation, Thule Air Base, which is the direct descendant of U.S. military involvement in Greenland that began during World War II in an effort to monitor German U-boat traffic in the North Atlantic, and was similarly crucial to U.S. Cold War efforts. Intrinsic geopolitical significance derived from Greenland's location aside, the receding Arctic icecap also makes maritime traffic and natural resource exploitation a possibility in the waters around Greenland. Greenland's western shores, which open to Baffin Bay, form part of the "Northwest Passage," a potentially immensely lucrative maritime route that would allow access between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Even if it were available for shipping just during the summer, the opening of the Northwest Passage would represent the most important shift in maritime shipping since the opening of the Panama Canal. Greenland's enhanced autonomy therefore comes in the middle of heated competition over the Arctic, with Russia, Norway, Canada, the United States and Denmark all scrambling to establish claims on shipping lanes and natural resource exploitation rights. For example, Denmark and Canada have competing claims over Hans Island off the northern coast of Greenland, while Russia has stepped up its naval patrols and ocean floor research in the Arctic. Full independence for Greenland is still a long way away. The newly elected governing party, Inuit Ataqatigiit, favors independence (as did its predecessor), but at a slow pace to ensure that Greenland is economically capable of becoming an independent country before it tries to go it alone. Subsidies from Denmark still account for a third of island's gross domestic product. And even with the new level of enhanced home rule, Copenhagen will still manage the island's foreign and defense policy. Nonetheless, the introduction of a new political entity, even one that is not fully independent, into the Arctic competition will open up possibilities for interested outsiders. Whereas the island government received most of its policy directives from Copenhagen before, Russia, Canada, the United States and Norway will not ignore that the island will now begin making many difficult decisions on its own. At less than 60,000 people, Greenland's small population means it cannot undertake any significant exploration of natural resources on its own — particularly not off-shore in Arctic waters that require significant technological know-how that even the major energy companies are still mastering. Governing the largest island in the world, which in terms of territory is slightly larger than Saudi Arabia, will be challenge enough. Therefore, major powers in the region will vie for influence on the island, doing all they can to lure Greenland to accept their leadership, advice and know-how in exploration and security matters.