It’s official: The Norwegian Labour Party will form a new city government in Bergen and Labour’s Marte Mjøs Persen will take over over as mayor. She succeeds Trude Drevland of the Conservatives, who had to step down from her post in the midst of a police investigation into whether she misused her office by granting favours to a local cruiseship owner.
The Conservatives also ended up losing the election in Bergen, paving the way for a new coalition city government led by Labour and including the Christian Democrats and the Liberals. Both of the two smaller centrist parties have an agreement to support Norway’s Conservatives-led national government, but in Bergen, the two opted to support the other leftist side of Norwegian politics.
Marita Moltu of the Christians Democrats will even serve as vice-mayor. Persen claimed that the political platform the three parties have agreed upon will make Bergen “a warmer and more fair city.”
In Oslo, post-election political negotiations continued that look likely to make the city’s new government much more left-leaning as well. The Conservatives narrowly lost last month’s local election after 18 years in power, leaving Labour to form a new coalition with the Socialist Left party (SV) and the Greens. The Greens have twice the voter support of SV, though, after winning 8.1 percent of the vote in Oslo. Labour won 32 percent of the vote, compared to the Conservatives 31.8 percent.
newsinenglish.no staff
