Voter support for Norway’s Labour-Center government took another dive in a new public opinion poll conducted for newspapers Dagbladet and Vårt Land. It now shows the two government parties with less than 20 percent of the vote, together.
Research firm Norstat’s poll shows Labour (Arbeiderpartiet) down to just 14.2 percent, while its government partner Center wouldn’t even have enough support for full representation in Parliament. It landed at just 3.8 percent.
Polling companies like Norstat have never measured such low support for Labour. Its embattled leader and prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, admitted that the new poll was “really bad” and told state broadcaster NRK that “there’s no doubt Labour is faring much too low in the polls now. That’s something I as party leader takes very seriously.”
He claimed once again, though, that no one at a central board meeting he’d just attended was calling for his resignation, in contrast to media reports last week, and that he remains “motivated” to carry on until the national election in September next year. Center Party leader Trygve Slagsvold Vedum, who also serves as Norway’s finance minister, claimed the two parties “will turn around” the dismal numbers by then: “We will keep working for what we believe in, social and geographic balance with policies that will develop all of Norway.”
The right-wing Progress Party had the most support in the new poll, with 27.4 percent of the vote compared to the Conservatives’ 21.5 percent. Progress leader Sylvi Listhaug herself claimed that “there’s only one result that really counts, and we’ll get that on Election Day.”
NewsinEnglish.no staff
