Category Archives: Norway

Denmark, Norway, Personal

Suffragio goes to Scandinavia

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Andrew Sullivan isn’t the only one who wants a break from the blogging grind!norwaydenmark flag

I am leaving this afternoon for Denmark and Norway, meeting with friends and breathing in a (very cold) week and a  half of Nordic sensibility.

That means posting will be particularly light and quite possibly oriented toward Scandinavia and its policies and politics, but also its culture, history, music and food.

I’ll still be writing about matters — the Arabian peninsula is still sorting out from the fallout of last week’s royal succession in Saudi Arabia and ongoing tumult in Yemen, the showdown between Greece’s new prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, and the rest of Europe, and Italy’s presidential election will dominate headlines tomorrow and Friday. Slovenia holds a referendum on February 7 on the constitutionality of same-sex marriage.

Next week, Delhi holds its legislative election, a real political test for both Arvind Kejriwal’s AAP and Narendra Modi’s BJP.

Of course, the big target for February will be Nigeria’s election, where former 1980s military leader and repeated presidential candidate Muhammadu Buhari has a real shot at dislodging the incumbent Goodluck Jonathan.

But through next week, Suffragio bids all of its reader God reise!

In the meanwhile, Suffragio has been nominated for Best Blog in the Online Achievement in International Studies awards. If you’re so inclined (and voting ends tomorrow), please email duckofminerva2015 at gmail.com for a ballot. There are a ton of great writers out there, and the ‘Duckies’ are a great introduction to them all!

Norway

Could Norway benefit from the oil price decline?

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When she was elected in September 2013 as Norway’s new conservative prime minister, one of Erna Solberg’s top priorities was to bring down the value of the Norwegian currency, the krone.norway

Boosted by its spectacular oil wealth, Norway is today one of the world’s wealthiest countries, so strong that it’s shunned not only eurozone membership but accession to the European Union altogether. Like many other oil-producing countries, however, the sudden drop of oil prices since July from over $100 per barrel to nearly $60 today has adversely affected Norway’s economy. If prices drop even lower, or the $60 level sustains itself through 2015 or beyond, it could endanger Solberg politically, who leads a minority government consisting of her own center-right Høyre (the ‘Right,’ or the Conservative Party) and the more controversial Framskrittspartiet (Progress Party), a more populist, anti-immigrant party that has its roots in the anti-tax movement. The Progress Party’s leader, Siv Jensen, now holds the unenviable task of serving as Norway’s finance minister as oil prices tumble. Solberg ousted the popular two-term prime minister Jens Stoltenberg, who is now NATO secretary-general.

But for a country that was facing inflationary pressure when the rest of Europe continues to battle deflation, the fall in oil prices may bring additional benefits to a country long topping the list of the world’s most expensive places. As of July 2014, Norway still led The Economist‘s ‘Big Mac Index‘ — the price of the iconic McDonald’s sandwich was a whopping 61% higher in Norway than in the United States.

There’s no doubt that a sustained fall in oil prices will harm Norway’s bottom line. It will reduce the revenues available for public spending (already estimated to fall by over $9 billion because of the price drop), and it could easily cause Norwegian GDP growth to fall in 2015 from estimates of 2% or so (still robust compared to the eurozone), thereby causing the country’s relatively low 3.4% jobless rate to climb.

But it’s also caused the krone to fall to a 13-year low, declining to  parity with neighboring Sweden’s currency, the krona, for the first time since 2000. As recently as May, one US dollar was worth 5.8 Norwegian kroner. Today, that’s skyrocketed to 7.5 kroner and, as Russia and other oil-exporting countries see their own currencies tanking, investors could push the krone even lower.

NOKUSDPhoto credit to Bloomberg.

Aside from reducing concerns about inflation, the krone‘s fall could provide all kinds of benefits to Norway. For now, Solberg remains incredibly popular with Norwegians. Also for now, Jensen and the government doesn’t seem panicked, though the central bank cut interest rates from 1.5% to 1.25% last week. The current 2015 budget cuts taxes, while holding social welfare spending steady and increasingly spending on the country’s infrastructure.  Continue reading Could Norway benefit from the oil price decline? →

Norway

Norway’s new center-right minority government is official

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jensen-solberg

Having narrowed coalition talks from four to two parties last week, it didn’t take long for Norway’s new government to emerge formally on Monday.norway

As I wrote late last week, Norway is set to have a minority government that will likely be its most right-wing government in postwar history:

As widely anticipated, the leader of the center-right Høyre (literally the ‘Right,’ or more commonly, the Conservative Party), Erna Solberg, will become Norway’s next prime minister, but she’ll lead a minority government in coalition with just one of Norway’s three other political parties, the controversial anti-immigrant Framskrittspartiet (Progress Party) after two smaller center-right parties pulled out of coalition talks earlier this week.

I wrote before the election that pulling together all four parties on the Norwegian right might prove problematic.  Sure enough, both the Kristelig Folkeparti (Christian Democratic Party) and Venstre (literally, ‘the Left,’ but commonly known as the Liberal Party), which will hold 10 and nine seats, respectively, in the next parliament, will not join the government.  Though both parties have agreed to provide support to Solberg from outside the government, it’s not an auspicious start for the broad four-party coalition that Solberg hoped to build after last month’s victory.

It was no surprise on Monday to see Erna Solberg, the leader of the Conservatives and Norway’s likely next prime minister (pictured above, right) and Siv Jensen, the leader of the Progress Party (pictured above, left) announce their governing agenda.

That agenda came with few surprises from the general framework largely set forth last week — a push to tightening Norway’s immigration laws (for non-Europeans), lowering Norway’s tax burden and, importantly, an agreement not to deviate from the ‘4% rule’ that prohibits more than 4% of the country’s massive $790 billion oil fund to be used in the annual Norwegian budget, and a commitment to avoid exploration for resources in protected Arctic areas.

Both parties generally hope to unlock economic growth and modernization through tax cuts and decentralization of power from Norway’s central government.

But perhaps the most ambitious item is a plan to develop a new infrastructure fund of up to 100 billion kroner ($16.75 billion) for what Solberg and Jensen hope will a five-year mission to improve Norway’s roads and railroads — as well as its educational system:

Kristin Skogen Lund, director-general of the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise, welcomed the “shift in direction for Norwegian politics”….

Ms Skogen Lund also welcomed the shift in focus of the oil fund from consumption to investment. The outgoing government had spent only about 14 per cent of annual proceeds from the fund, she said, when all of it was supposed to be directed into infrastructure, education and tax reduction.

That’s important in light of Solberg’s goal to reduce the value of the krone, Norway’s currency — inflation, along with high labor costs that have made Norway’s exports relatively uncompetitive, are the largest challenges to an economy that’s at risk of overheating (to the contrary of much of the rest of Europe).  Though the ‘investment’ will surely stimulate Norway’s economy, it will do so for long-term benefits.  That makes the Solberg ‘investment fund’ plan unlike, say, the 2009 US stimulus package enacted into law by US president Barack Obama designed to do the opposite — boost short-term aggregate demand.

Solberg’s government will also explore the possibility of splitting the country’s oil fund, the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, into two smaller entities to encourage competition and maximize Norway’s investment returns.

The two parties remain at odds over cabinet posts, though it’s widely expected than Jensen will hold the finance portfolio.

By way of background, the Conservative/Progress coalition will hold 77 seats — and all four center-right parties will hold 96 seats — in the 169-member Storting, Norway’s parliament.  Though the center-left Arbeiderpartiet (Labour Party) of outgoing prime minister Jens Stoltenberg won more seats than any other party in the September 9 election, its coalition allies suffered huge losses — the Conservatives placed a close second and the Progress Party finished third, and a broad center-right government had been widely expected even before the election.

storting

Top photo credit to Vegard Grøtt / NTB scanpix.

Norway

Norway’s new government will be more right-wing and more fragile than expected

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ernaPM

Just less than a month after Norwegians went to the polls, the contours of Norway’s new government are taking shape — and it’s not exactly what everyone expected.norway

As widely anticipated, the leader of the center-right Høyre (literally the ‘Right,’ or more commonly, the Conservative Party), Erna Solberg, will become Norway’s next prime minister, but she’ll lead a minority government in coalition with just one of Norway’s three other political parties, the controversial anti-immigrant Framskrittspartiet (Progress Party) after two smaller center-right parties pulled out of coalition talks earlier this week.

The difference is that instead of a 96-seat majority in the 169-member Storting, Norway’s parliament, Solberg’s government will hold just 77 seats, eight short of an absolute majority:

storting

I wrote before the election that pulling together all four parties on the Norwegian right might prove problematic.  Sure enough, both the Kristelig Folkeparti (Christian Democratic Party) and Venstre (literally, ‘the Left,’ but commonly known as the Liberal Party), which will hold 10 and nine seats, respectively, in the next parliament, will not join the government.  Though both parties have agreed to provide support to Solberg (pictured above) from outside the government, it’s not an auspicious start for the broad four-party coalition that Solberg hoped to build after last month’s victory.  The absence of the Christian Democrats is particularly difficult, given that they led the last center-right Norwegian government — that of prime minister Kjell Magne Bondevik between 1997 and 2000 and 2001 to 2005.

The Progress Party, meanwhile, will enter government for the first time since its foundation in the 1970s.  Founded as an anti-tax movement determined to roll back the Norwegian social welfare state, the Progress Party has also become increasingly anti-immigrant.  While it’s certainly tame compared to many of Europe’s more xenophobic anti-immigrant parties, it’s easily the most controversial party in Norway (not least because mass killer Anders Behring Breivik was once among its members).  Anxiety about the Progress Party’s new, unprecedented role in government is one of the reasons that the Christian Democrats and Liberals may have been wary of formally joining Solberg’s coalition, which will now become Norway’s most right-wing government in a century.

Solberg, on the other hand, slowly gained the trust of Norwegians after rebranding the Conservatives into a more welcoming, more national party that’s transcended its base catering to business interests in Oslo.  Although the Conservatives and the Progress Party agree on economic policies like tax cuts, the Conservatives have positioned themselves as an ever-so-slightly right-of-center party who would leave in place much of the mainstream policy preferences of the outgoing center-left Arbeiderpartiet (Labour Party) — you can characterize ‘mainstream’ in Norway as full commitment to a  generous social welfare state, mixed with strict fiscal discipline that diverts much of Norway’s oil largesse into its $780 billion investment fund, the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund.

Given that the Labour Party, led by the popular outgoing prime minister Jens Stoltenberg, still managed to win more votes than any other party — and seven more parliamentary seats than the Conservatives — last month (a feat Labour has repeated in every national election since 1918), that’s a wise move on Solberg’s part.  But balancing the moderation that Norwegians expect from her with the Progress Party’s expectations was always going to be difficult, and Solberg’s dream of a broad four-party coalition will be the first casualty of those competing expectations.

That balancing act informs much of the resulting agreement between the Conservatives and Progress and, more generally, among the four right-wing parties that Solberg will need to satisfy to keep her minority coalition in government — it’s more notable for what the government won’t do than what it will.  The government faces a much different challenge than the rest of Europe — with GDP growth holding steady at around 2%, it’s overheating, not recession, that threatens the economy.  Solberg’s challenge is how to keep the Norwegian krone from further appreciating, given that the country’s high wages are already making exports less competitive.

Notwithstanding the election campaign, lowering the value of the krone might ultimately be the Solberg’s most pressing policy imperative.

Here are the highlights of how Norway’s next government will unfold under Solberg’s leadership:  Continue reading Norway’s new government will be more right-wing and more fragile than expected →

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Despite the success of pro-EU parties in Norway, don’t expect EU membership anytime soon

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One of the odder results of this week’s Norwegian election is that while it boosted the numbers of seats for the two parties that are most in favor of membership in the European Union, Norway is today less likely than ever to seek EU membership.European_Unionnorway

Together, the center-left Arbeiderpartiet (Labour Party) and the center-right Høyre (the Conservative Party) will hold 103 seats as the largest and second-largest parties, respectively, in the Storting, Norway’s 169-member parliament — that’s a larger number of cumulative seats than the two pro-European parties have won since the 1985 election.

But EU membership is firmly not on the agenda of Norway’s likely new prime minister, Erna Solberg, just like it wasn’t on the agenda of outgoing  prime minister Jens Stoltenberg during his eight years in government.

One of the obvious reasons is that EU membership is massively unpopular among Norwegians — an August poll found that 70% oppose membership to just 19% who support it.

Proponents of EU membership argue that because Norway is part of Europe’s internal market, it is already subject to many of the European Union’s rules. (Norway is also a member of the Schengen free-travel zone that has largely eliminated national border controls within Europe)  But until Norway is a member of the European Union, it has absolutely no input on the content of those rules.  Stoltenberg (pictured above left with European Council president Herman Van Rompuy) has called the result ‘fax diplomacy,’ with Norwegian legislators forced to wait for instructions from Brussels in the form of the latest directive.

Since 1994, when Norwegians narrowly rejected EU membership in a referendum, Norway has been a member of the European Economic Area (EEA), an agreement among the EU countries, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein that allows Norway and the other non-EU countries access to the European single market.

Opponents argue that Norway, with just 5 million people, would have a negligible input in a union that now encompasses 28 countries and nearly 508 million people.  They also argue that with one of Europe’s wealthiest economies, Norway would be forced to contribute part of its oil largesse to shore up the shakier economies of southern and eastern Europe.  There are also sovereignty considerations for a country that didn’t win its independence from Sweden until 1905 — and then suffered German occupation from 1940 to 1945.  Though Norwegians also often cite the desire to keep their rich north Atlantic fisheries free of EU competition, Norway already has a special arrangement with the European Union on fisheries and agriculture, and it’s likely that it would continue to have a special arrangement as an EU member, in the same way that the United Kingdom has opted out of both the eurozone and the Schengen area and has negotiated its own EU budget rebate.

Though Solberg herself is from Norway’s western coast, her party’s base is comprised largely of business-friendly elites in Oslo and Norway’s other urban centers, where support for EU membership runs highest.  But that enthusiasm doesn’t always flow down to voters who support Solberg, and it certainly doesn’t extend to Norway’s other right-wing parties.  Continue reading Despite the success of pro-EU parties in Norway, don’t expect EU membership anytime soon →

Norway

Solberg set to lead broad center-right coalition in Norway after today’s election

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Erna Solberg, the longtime leader of Norway’s Conservative Party, will become Norway’s next prime minister after results from today’s Norwegian parliamentary election showed all four of Norway’s center-right parties winning enough seats to form an absolute majority in Norway’s Storting (parliament).norway

Prime minister Jen Stoltenberg has conceded defeat, and will resign shortly after presenting Norway’s next budget in mid-October.

The result’s a lot more complicated than that — for starters, Stoltenberg’s party, the center-left Arbeiderpartiet (Labour Party) actually won more votes than Solberg’s party, the center-right Høyre (literally the ‘Right’) — so much so that Labour will have around 55 seats to just 48 for the Conservatives.  It’s not an unexpected result because while polls earlier this summer showed the Conservatives leading Labour, support for Labour has increased as Norwegians focused on the campaign.  Moreover, Labour has emerged in every election since 1924 with more support and seats than Norway’s various opposition parties, and its long pedigree as the natural party of government means that it has a deeper wellspring of support among the Norwegian electorate.

Here’s the breakdown of voter support with nearly all the votes counted:

norway results

Here’s the projected allocation of seat in Norway’s new parliament:

storting

But that wasn’t enough to pull off a victory for two reasons.  First, Labour’s support — around 30.9% — is smaller than the 35.4% it won in the September 2009 election, natural enough for a party that’s been in power for eight years and is seeking a third consecutive term.  Secondly, the two small parties that comprise the ‘red-green’ coalition that Stoltenberg heads, Sosialistisk Venstreparti (Socialist Left Party) and the Senterpartiet (Centre Party), did incredibly poorly, so the ‘red-green’ coalition is projected to win just a cumulative 72 seats in the 169-member Storting.

Meanwhile, Solberg’s Conservatives cannot govern by themselves, but must form an alliance among the four major center-right parties that will join parliament.  That includes the Kristelig Folkeparti (Christian Democratic Party), a moderately conservative party that led Norway’s last center-right government under prime minister Kjell Magne Bondevik between 1997 and 2000 and again from 2001 to 2005, and it includes Venstre (literally, ‘the Left,’ but commonly known as the Liberal Party).  All three parties worked together in government between 2001 and 2005 and all three parties generally accept the fait accompli of the Norwegian social welfare state and Labour’s rules to stash much of Norway’s annual budget surplus in the country’s massive oil wealth fund.  The Conservatives, in particular, have spent the election arguing for slight changes to the status quo, such as lower business taxes and tweaks to Norway’s health care system, after a major rebranding exercise to grow beyond their base of Oslo business interests.

But the coalition must also include the more controversial Framskrittspartiet (Progress Party).  Most reports highlight that the party is relatively populist and anti-immigrant, and that it was the party of Norway’s Anders Behring Breivik, who was responsible for the deadliest killings in Norway’s history in twin attacks in 2011.  That’s all true, but the party’s roots are in the anti-tax movement of the 1970s, and its goal is a massive rupture from the status quo — it would claw back many of Norway’s social benefits, drastically reduce the role of government in Norwegian life, but it would also push to spend more of the Norwegian oil surplus (or return it in the form of lower taxes).   Continue reading Solberg set to lead broad center-right coalition in Norway after today’s election →

Norway

Solberg favored to become prime minister as Norway votes today

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In Norway, voters will decide today whether to deliver prime minister Jens Stoltenberg a third term in government.norway

Stoltenberg, in his eighth year of office, leads the center-left Arbeiderpartiet (Labour Party) that dominates Norway’s governing ‘red-green’ coalition.  But while the center-right Høyre (literally the ‘Right,’ or more commonly, the Conservative Party) consistently led polls as the most popular party throughout the summer, Labour has caught back up in the polls, and the two are neck-in-neck to determine which will win the most votes today.

But even if Labour wins the largest share of the vote (as it’s done in every election since 1927), the Conservatives remain heavily favored to form Norway’s next government because the center-right parties, taken together, far outpoll the center-left parties.  Labour’s two smaller allies, in particular, are faring poorly in polls.

That means that Conservative leader Erna Solberg (pictured above, left, with Stoltenberg, right) is predicted to become Norway’s next prime minister with the support of the Folkeparti (Christian Democratic Party) and the Venstre (the Liberal Party), but also the Framskrittspartiet (Progress Party), a far-right, populist anti-immigration, anti-tax, anti-social welfare party formed in the 1970s.  Solberg leads a party that’s undergone a major rebranding in recent years — Solberg, from western Norway, leads a relatively moderate center-right party that hopes to lower taxes but otherwise promises quite a bit of continuity with Stoltenberg’s policies.  With a base in Oslo, the Conservatives are very business-friendly, and are likely to continue both the fiscal prudence of the Stoltenberg government (which diverts much of Norway’s annual budget surplus into its oil fund) as well as the social welfare state that’s come to define Norwegian government.

Although the Progress Party is currently the second-largest party in Norway’s Storting (Parliament), it’s never been part of a government in Norwegian history.  So even though it’s likely to lose seats today, its leader Siv Jensen will have the votes to bring Solberg a broader right-wing majority — and to demand the finance portfolio, despite the fact that Progress has radically different views about Norway’s finances than Labour and the Conservatives.

If Labour holds on, it will be due to Labour’s historically strong political base in the Norwegian heartland and its get-out-the-vote efforts, but also due to hesitation over putting the Progress Party in power, not any hesitation about Solberg.

Norway, a country of just five million in Scandinavia, is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, with a GDP per capita of about $50,000 to $60,000, due in large part to Norway’s oil wealth.  Voters will elect all 169 members of the unicameral Storting on the basis of proportional representation by choosing candidates from among 19 multi-member districts.  The electoral threshold for entering parliament is 4% of the vote.  Although Norway has twice rejected joining the European Union (most recently in a 1994 referendum), it is a member of the European Economic Area, so like Iceland and Liechtenstein, it is a member of the European single market, even though it doesn’t have any input on policymaking as a European Union non-member.

For more of Suffragio‘s coverage on Norway’s parliamentary elections:

  • here’s a look at how Solberg and the Conservatives ended up such strong frontrunners in 2013;
  • here’s a look at why no one should count out Stoltenberg and Labour today; and
  • here’s a look at tensions among Norway’s center-right parties and why a broad center-right government is still more likely than a ‘grand coalition.’

Norway

Despite doubts about far-right Progress Party, no talk of Norwegian ‘grand coalition’

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siv jensen

Though the Høyre (‘Right,’ or Conservative Party) consistently leads polls as the party mostly likely to emerge with the most support in Norway’s September 9 elections, there’s still uncertainty about the future of Norway’s government.norway

That’s because while Conservative leader Erna Solberg is very likely to become Norway’s next prime minister and the Conservatives are widely tipped to win on September 9, the policies that her government will pursue will depend on the relative strength of the other center-right parties — notably the populist, anti-government, anti-immigration Framskrittspartiet (Progress Party), which remains the most controversial of Norway’s major parties.  If it joins the Conservatives in government as predicted, it will be the first time that the Progress Party has joined any government since it was founded in the 1970s.

If the election unfolds as polls predict, the Conservatives would win the largest share of the vote, around 32% and around 56 seats, which would be a historical victory against the Arbeiderpartiet (Labour Party), which is polling around 29% and around 51 seats.  The Progress Party currently polls as the third-most popular party with around 14.5% support and around 27 seats.  That means that the next government will require some kind of coalition between two of those three parties.

So while it’s not surprising that tensions are emerging during the campaign between Solberg and Progress Party leader Siv Jensen (pictured above) and that it’s clear coalition negotiations among the Conservatives, the Progress Party and other center-right allies are likely to be incredibly difficult, it is perhaps surprising that no one has really suggested a ‘grand coalition’ between Labour and the Conservatives as an alternative.  While there’s no real precedent of ‘grand coalitions’ in recent Norwegian history, neither is there precedent for a Conservative-Progress government — both options would mark new ground for Norway.

Solberg is riding high in polls today after a long stint in the wilderness for the Conservatives and a rebranding exercise designed to pull the Conservatives more fully to the center and expand the party’s relevance beyond its traditional image as a party solely for Norway’s business elite.  That means that it has moved more closely to Labour’s position on many issues and it’s much closer to Labour than to the Progress Party on both economic and social issues alike.  Nonetheless, there’s curiously little discussion about a ‘grand coalition,’ even as Norwegians assume that the Conservative-Progress coalition is virtually a done deal.  That means that the Conservatives, a party that favors continuity over rupture, will govern with the Progress Party, which has historically favored rupture over continuity.  It will also likely mean that Jensen will become Norway’s next finance minister, an outcome that could scare moderate voters otherwise disposed to a Solberg-led government into supporting Labour instead.

If, for some reason, the Conservatives win the election and don’t form a coalition with Progress, because negotiations stall or because Progress’s vote collapses, the Conservatives would more likely form a coalition with two smaller center-right parties or even try a minority government before pairing up with Labour, not least of which because Labour prime minister Jens Stoltenberg has spent much of his campaign warning about all the damage that a right-wing government would cause to Norwegian society.

But on policy terms, there’s a lot to recommend a Norwegian ‘grand coalition.’  And if it can happen in Germany, Austria and Italy, why not in Norway too?  Continue reading Despite doubts about far-right Progress Party, no talk of Norwegian ‘grand coalition’ →

Norway

Four reasons why cab-driving Stoltenberg has a chance at winning Norway’s election

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stoltenberg

Though he’s making headlines this week for his stunt as a barely-disguised cab driver cruising the streets of Oslo to get a sense of the frustrations of Norwegian voters less than a month before Norway’s parliamentary elections, prime minister Jens Stoltenberg has long seemed destined to lose the September 9 vote. norway

Stoltenberg, who leads the Arbeiderpartiet (Labour Party) and has served as Norway’s prime minister since 2005, is running for a third consecutive term, and poll shave consistently shown his party running behind the Høyre (literally the ‘Right,’ or Conservative Party), and Norway has braced throughout the year for the likelihood that its voters will elect a center-right government.  It’s not unprecedented for Norway to have a right-leaning government — most recently, the Conservatives were part of a governing coalition led by Kjell Magne Bondevik and the Kristelig Folkeparti (Christian People’s Party) from 2001 to 2005.  But if polls today are correct, the Conservative Party will actually win more votes than the long-dominant Labour Party, and therefore hold more seats in the Storting, Norway’s parliament, and that hasn’t happened in a Norwegian election since 1924.

But the polls are narrowing — the Conservative Party still leads the Labor Party, and taken together, the broad center-right parties expected to form Norway’s next government hold a double-digit lead over the broad center-left parties that currently comprise Stoltenberg’s governing coalition.  One recent poll from TNS Gallup over the weekend showed the Conservatives with just 31.6% to 30.1% for Labour, much narrower than the five-point lead the Conservatives held only in July.  Here’s the latest August poll-of-polls data:

poll august norway

As I wrote earlier this summer, Erna Solberg, the leader of the Conservative Party since 2004, became the frontrunner in next month’s elections by rebranding the Conservatives as an acceptably moderate alternative to Labour.  In many ways, Solberg’s Conservatives today share more in common with Labour than with their largest presumptive coalition partner, the more populist, far-right Framskrittspartiet (Progress Party), a party.  But there’s still more or less a month to go before voting begins, and many Norwegians are still focused on their summer holidays than on the late-summer campaign.  That means there’s more than enough time for Labour to make up the difference before September 9.

While that doesn’t necessarily mean that Labour will return to government, it does mean that Labour has a shot at retaining its place as the largest parliamentary party in Norway and, in a best-case scenario, could potentially form a new, broader coalition, perhaps even with the Conservatives, to keep the Progress Party out of government.

Here are four reasons why that outcome isn’t as farfetched as it seems:

Continue reading Four reasons why cab-driving Stoltenberg has a chance at winning Norway’s election →

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How Erna Solberg became the frontrunner in Norway’s upcoming election

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erna

Norway kicks off a busy month of elections in Europe with parliamentary elections on September 9, and if the past year’s worth of polls are to be trusted, Norwegians seem set to take a right turn, despite one of the best economies in Europe. norway

If they do so, Norway is likely to have only the second female prime minister in its history — Erna Solberg, who since 2004 has been the leader of the Høyre (literally the ‘Right,’ or more commonly, the Conservative Party).

With less than two months to go, Solberg’s Conservatives have built a growing and steady lead over the governing Arbeiderpartiet (Labour Party) and prime minister Jens Stoltenberg, a popular prime minister who’s governed Norway since 2005.

A familiar face as the Conservative leader for nearly a decade, Solberg served previously as a minister of local government and regional development from 2001 to 2005 in Norway’s previous center-right government, a role that earned her the nickname of ‘Jern-Erna,’ or ‘Iron Erna,’ and she bears some similarity to the other, more familiar center-right leader who’s running for reelection in September as well (catch an English interview with Solberg from April on the U.S.-based CNBC here).

Winning a third consecutive term in office is difficult for any government because, as years go by, the front line of policymakers either leave government or become increasingly fatigued, and governing parties, who have an increasing political stake in the status quo, don’t often regenerate the same quality of new ideas that outside parties do while in opposition.

But it’s hard to understand just why Labour seems so likely headed out of government, especially in light of Stoltenberg’s continued popularity.  It’s even more baffling when you consider that Norway is one of the best governed states in Europe, let alone the world.  Despite the fact that most of Europe is in recession or zero-growth mode, Norway grew by an estimated 3% in 2012, and the unemployment rate is a laughably low 3.5%.  Thanks to its oil wealth, it has had balanced budgets for nearly two decades, the government routinely banks its surplus (an estimated 15% of GDP in 2012) in investment funds for future use, and Norway’s GDP per capita now exceeds $60,000.

That leads to two questions: why are Norwegian voters so adamant about voting out its current government? And how did Solberg and the Conservatives become such clear frontrunners?

Background: politics in the Stoltenberg era

The 2005 election (and the ensuing 2009 election) brought about the balance that’s largely held steady for the past eight years.  Stoltenberg currently governs with the support of a ‘Red-Green’ coalition dominated by Labour and its two smaller allies, the democratic socialist Sosialistisk Venstreparti (Socialist Left Party) and the Senterpartiet (Centre Party), a chiefly agrarian party that’s moved from the political right to the political left in recent years.  Note that ‘green’ in Norway’s Red-Green coalition indicates the Center Party’s roots in rural life, not its environmental activism.

The 2005 fall of the previous center-right government of prime minster Kjell Magne Bondevik brought a drop in support for both Kristelig Folkeparti (Christian Democratic Party) and his coalition partners, the Conservatives.  That left the Framskrittspartiet (Progress Party), a relatively populist party known chiefly for its opposition to much of the Norwegian social welfare state, its advocacy of lower taxes, smaller government and deregulation, and its controversial anti-immigration stance, as the second-largest party in Norway’s parliament.  Unlike Labour and the Conservatives, both of which were founded in the late 19th century, the Progress Party emerged only in the 1970s as a modern conservative anti-tax movement.  Though it’s grown to become a major force in Norwegian politics over the 1990s and 20o0s, Progress has never formally joined any government, though that seems likely to change, as Solberg is expected to bring Progress into government if her party maintains its polling lead on September 9.

Though if Solberg’s Conservatives win their expected landslide, they will do so in large part by consolidating left-leaning moderates that have supported Labour and right-leaning moderates that have supported Progress.

The latest July 2013 poll-of-polls shows the Conservatives with nearly 32% of the vote, which would give them around 58 seats in the Storting, Norway’s unicameral 169-seat parliament:

norway poll of polls

That’s a huge jump from the 30 seats the Conservatives hold now, and it’s a massive jump from their 2005 debacle, when they won just 14.1% of the vote and a measly 23 seats.

Even more striking is that Labour might not win the largest plurality of votes and the largest bloc of seats in parliament — for the first time since 1924. Continue reading How Erna Solberg became the frontrunner in Norway’s upcoming election →

European Union, Germany, Italy, Norway, Switzerland, The Netherlands

Is the European ‘Christian democracy’ party model dead?

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When Dutch voters go to the polls on September 12, we don’t know whether they’ll favor prime minister Mark Rutte’s Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie (VVD, the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy) or Emile Roemer’s Socialistische Partij (SP, the Socialist Party) or even Diederik Samsom’s Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA, the Labour Party) as their top choice.

What we do know is that the election could well be the worst post-war finish for the traditional Christian Democratic party in the Netherlands, the Christen-Democratisch Appèl (CDA, Christian Democratic Appeal).  It’s currently on track to finish in fifth place (or even sixth place) in a country that it had a hand in governing virtually without break in Dutch post-war politics until 2010.

In 2010, the CDA won just 21 seats in the lower house of the Dutch parliament, and it could win just 15 seats or less this time around.

So it goes all across Europe:

  • In Italy, the Democrazia Cristiana controlled the government (or participated in governing coalitions) for nearly 50 years of post-war Italian politics.  The Tangentopoli (‘Bribesville’) scandal led to its demise under the weight of massive corruption allegations in 1992, and the remaining core of that party, the Unione dei Democratici Cristiani e di Centro (UDC, the Union of Christian and Centre Democrats), led by Pier Ferdinando Casini, plays a significant, but minor role in Italian politics today.
  • Norway’s Christian Democratic Party, the Kristelig Folkeparti (KrF) once dominated Norwegian politics as well, but now holds just 10 out of 169 seats in the Norwegian parliament.
  • In Bavaria, the Christlich-Soziale Union (CSU, Christian Social Union) has controlled Bavaria’s state government since 1957.  It’s still the overwhelmingly largest party in Bavarian politics, but it lost 32 seats in the Landtag in 2008 and now holds just 92, and it looks likely to lose even more seats in the Bavarian state elections that must be held in 2013.
  • In Switzerland, the Christlichdemokratische Volkspartei der Schweiz (CVP, Christian Democratic People’s Party of Switzerland) has steadily declined since the 1970s.

Only in German federal politics does Christian democracy seem to be holding on — in the form of Angel Merkel’s Christlich Demokratische Union (CDU, Christian Democratic Union), which is allied at the federal level with Bavaria’s CSU.

So what’s happened to Christian democracy? And is it a concept whose time is up?

Christian democracy emerged as a political movement in the 19th century, as much as anything a reaction of the Catholic Church to the Industrial Revolution — and to the Marxist ideas that had so effectively challenged industrial capitalism in the mid-19th century, in the same way that the social democratic movement that gave voice to (and moderated) the growing labor movement.  (Some political scientists see a parallel in the “justice and development” strand of moderate Islamist parties that have emerged in Turkey and through vehicles like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Jordan).

It reached its heyday during the Cold War as a bulwark against the communist influences of Soviet Russia, but today seems increasingly an anachronism as the European right divides into, on the one hand, a free-market liberal ideology untroubled with cultural issues and, on the other hand, a nationalist ideology that is increasingly both anti-Europe and anti-immigrant.  That fragmentation provides yet another complication in navigating the European Union out of its current debt and currency crisis — the European Union was formed and the eurozone conceived in a world where Christian democracy largely controlled the initial EU member states. Continue reading Is the European ‘Christian democracy’ party model dead? →