City governments finally in place

Politicians in Oslo could finally announce their new government line-up on Monday, six weeks after municipal elections were held in Norway. It’s also taken politicians in other cities a long time to get their governments in place, because of a need for lengthy political negotiations. The number of parties involved in elections in Norway often [...]

Progress Party falls to new low

A new public opinion poll leaves Norway’s most conservative party, the Progress Party, with just 11.1 percent of the vote. That means it’s lost more than half its support in the past two years, and that’s also bad news for the opposition in Parliament. The Progress Party (Fremskrittspartiet, Frp) won 22.9 percent of the vote [...]

‘Greener’ government grows in Oslo

The two winning parties in the Oslo city election, plus a minor potential partner, are finally hashing out a prospective platform for a new coalition government. It will be led by the Conservatives (Høyre), with the small Liberal Party (Venstre) expected to give the coalition a much more environmentally conscious profile. Venstre will be taking [...]

Still unclear who’ll rule in Oslo

Fabian Stang of the Conservative Party will retain his job as mayor of Oslo, but politicians in Norway’s capital are still negotiating which parties will make up its city government, known as byrådet. Changes loom after the Progress Party’s heavy loss in local elections. The Conservative Party (Høyre) and the Progress Party (Fremskrittspartiet, Frp) have [...]

Progress Party vows comeback

Disappointed members of Norway’s most conservative political party, the Progress Party, retreated into meetings on Tuesday to hash out just what went wrong in local elections that saw their support cut in half in many Norwegian cities. Analysts were offering lots of reasons for the party’s abrupt fall. The party faithful didn’t seem inclined to [...]

Conservatives won most major cities

Oslo is far from the only city in Norway facing conservative leadership over the next four years. While Oslo Mayor Fabian Stang hung on to his job following local elections, his Conservative Party (Høyre) also retained or won new power from Kristiansand in the south to Tromsø in the north. City governments in Bergen and [...]

Høyre wins big, at Frp’s expense

Norway’s Conservative Party (Høyre) scored the biggest overall gain of any of Norway’s parties in the local elections that wrapped up on Monday, while Labour (Arbeiderpartiet) hung on as the country’s biggest single party. The parties on both the far right and far left suffered the biggest losses, with voters fleeing both the Progress Party [...]

Turnout brisk when voting began

Signs pointed the way to polling places (valglokaler) on Sunday afternoon in several cities and towns that offered a jump-start on Election Day in Norway. A steady stream of voters followed them, while others were lined up when polls officially opened Monday morning. Voters had also been able to cast ballots in absentee and early [...]

Hagen drops mayoral race

Carl I Hagen, the veteran politician and former head of the conservative Progress Party, says he’s giving up the campaign for mayor of Oslo because the public seems to so clearly favour one of his opponents, incumbent mayor Fabian Stang of the Conservative Party. Hagen told newspaper Aftenposten on Friday that he has realized he [...]

Ministers’ quarrels upset the boss

Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg is not pleased that ministers in the left-center government coalition he leads have been openly quarreling during the past week. He let them know, and claimed Thursday that he’d arranged at least a temporary truce. It all started when Oil & Energy Minister Ola Borten Moe, a 35-year-old politician from the [...]

School elections cheer Labour Party

Never before has the Labour Party (Arbeiderpartiet, Ap) done so well in the school elections held as a test of young Norwegians’ choices before general elections. Labour’s victory in the elections held at 368 schools around the country on Tuesday was called “historic.” Labour attracted 29.7 percent of the vote and emerged as the big [...]

Voter turnout heading for new highs

Municipal and county elections will formally take place all over Norway on Sunday and Monday, but thousands of Norwegians already have exercised their right to cast early ballots. Their sheer numbers seem to confirm predictions that total voter turnout will be high. Norwegians were struck by new feelings of solidarity and a need to preserve [...]

Labour slips in the polls

Norway’s Labour Party, which has government power and won huge support after the July 22 terrorist attacks, has slipped in the most recent public opinion polls. It remains the country’s largest party, though, and has gained in several townships. The poll, conducted by research firm Respons for newspaper Aftenposten, was taken just over a week [...]

Immigrant vote can be decisive

Norway’s political parties have realized that the immigrant vote can make or break them as they head into the next national municipal elections on September 11-12. Several parties including the Conservatives and Labour are actively courting support from relatively new arrivals eligible to cast a ballot. While only residents with Norwegian citizenship can vote in [...]

Jens back on the campaign trail

Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg was moving on this week, from guiding the nation’s mourning period to fronting political issues and, not least, the municipal election campaign that was postponed by the July 22 terrorist attacks. Commentators who follow the popular premier agreed after the first televised party leader debate that Stoltenberg succeeded in making the [...]

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