Norway’s left-wing opposition wins election in a landslide
Labour expected to form coalition with other left-leaning parties as it seeks to reduce inequality and wean the economy off oil.
Jubilation for Norway's Labour Party and leader Jonas Gahr Store (second right) after exit polls showed victory in the election. [Javad Parsa/ NTB via AFP]
14 Sep 2021
Norway’s left-wing opposition headed by Labour Party leader Jonas Gahr Store has had a landslide win in a general election after a campaign dominated by the future of the country’s oil industry.
Store unseated a centre-right coalition on Monday headed by Conservative Prime Minister Erna Solberg, which had been in power since 2013.
“We waited, we hoped, and we have worked so hard, and now we can finally say it: We did it!,” Store, who is likely to be the next prime minister, told cheering supporters after Solberg conceded defeat.
With 97.5 percent of the votes counted, Labour and four other centre-left parties could swing to a combined majority of 100 seats, up from 81 currently, the Directorate of Elections projected.
A minimum of 85 seats is required to win a majority in the 169-seat parliament.
“Norway has sent a clear signal: the election shows that the Norwegian people want a fairer society,” said the 61-year-old millionaire who campaigned against social inequalities.
Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg, leader of the Conservative Party, conceded defeat on Monday night after eight years in power [Heiko Junge/NTB via Reuters]
Norway’s position as western Europe’s biggest oil and gas producer was at the heart of the election campaign after the August report on climate from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) thrust the issue to the top of the agenda. Store had called for a gradual transition away from the oil economy, while the Greens had called for an immediate end to oil exploration. The Conservatives had also called for a transition away from the fossil fuels that have made Norway wealthy.
“I want to congratulate Jonas Gahr Store, who now seems to have a clear majority for a change of government,” 60-year-old Solberg said in her concession speech.
To form a viable cabinet, Stoere might need to persuade potential centre-left partners to compromise on policies ranging from oil and private ownership to Norway’s relations with the European Union.
“We, as the biggest party, will make sure that Norway will get a new government and a new course,” Store said in a speech to party members.
“In the coming days, I will invite the leaders of all parties who want a change,” he said, adding he would start with the Centre Party and Socialist Left.
The oil sector accounts for 14 percent of Norway’s gross domestic product, as well as 40 percent of its exports and employs 160,000 people directly.
It has also helped the country of 5.4 million people amass the world’s biggest sovereign wealth fund, today worth close to 12 trillion kroner ($1.4 trillion).
A former minister in the governments of Jens Stoltenberg between 2005 and 2013, Store is now expected to begin negotiations with the Centre, which primarily defends the interests of its rural base, and the Socialist Left, which is a strong advocate for environmental issues.
Store has also pledged to address inequality by cutting taxes for low and middle-income families and increasing rates for the rich
SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES
14 Sep 2021
Norway’s left-wing opposition headed by Labour Party leader Jonas Gahr Store has had a landslide win in a general election after a campaign dominated by the future of the country’s oil industry.
Store unseated a centre-right coalition on Monday headed by Conservative Prime Minister Erna Solberg, which had been in power since 2013.
“We waited, we hoped, and we have worked so hard, and now we can finally say it: We did it!,” Store, who is likely to be the next prime minister, told cheering supporters after Solberg conceded defeat.
With 97.5 percent of the votes counted, Labour and four other centre-left parties could swing to a combined majority of 100 seats, up from 81 currently, the Directorate of Elections projected.
A minimum of 85 seats is required to win a majority in the 169-seat parliament.
“Norway has sent a clear signal: the election shows that the Norwegian people want a fairer society,” said the 61-year-old millionaire who campaigned against social inequalities.
Norway’s position as western Europe’s biggest oil and gas producer was at the heart of the election campaign after the August report on climate from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) thrust the issue to the top of the agenda. Store had called for a gradual transition away from the oil economy, while the Greens had called for an immediate end to oil exploration. The Conservatives had also called for a transition away from the fossil fuels that have made Norway wealthy.
“I want to congratulate Jonas Gahr Store, who now seems to have a clear majority for a change of government,” 60-year-old Solberg said in her concession speech.
To form a viable cabinet, Stoere might need to persuade potential centre-left partners to compromise on policies ranging from oil and private ownership to Norway’s relations with the European Union.
“We, as the biggest party, will make sure that Norway will get a new government and a new course,” Store said in a speech to party members.
“In the coming days, I will invite the leaders of all parties who want a change,” he said, adding he would start with the Centre Party and Socialist Left.
The oil sector accounts for 14 percent of Norway’s gross domestic product, as well as 40 percent of its exports and employs 160,000 people directly.
It has also helped the country of 5.4 million people amass the world’s biggest sovereign wealth fund, today worth close to 12 trillion kroner ($1.4 trillion).
A former minister in the governments of Jens Stoltenberg between 2005 and 2013, Store is now expected to begin negotiations with the Centre, which primarily defends the interests of its rural base, and the Socialist Left, which is a strong advocate for environmental issues.
Store has also pledged to address inequality by cutting taxes for low and middle-income families and increasing rates for the rich
SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES
Norway's center-left heads to victory in general elections
Published Monday, September 13, 2021
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) - The center-left bloc headed to a victory in Norway's elections Monday as official projections pointed to the governing Conservatives losing power after a campaign dominated by climate change and the future of the country's oil and gas exploration industry.
With a projection based on a preliminary count of nearly 93% of the votes, the Labor Party and its two allies - the Socialist Left and the euroskeptic Center Party - would hold 100 seats in the 169-seat Stortinget assembly while the current government would get 68. One seat was still unsure.
As Norway's largest party, Labor will try to form a coalition government and its chief, 61-year-old Jonas Gahr Stoere, is poised to become Norway's next leader. The Scandinavian country is not a member of the European Union.
“We will now give Norway a new government and a new course,” Gahr Stoere said on a election night before cheering party members who chanted “Stoere” and clapped. He added that he will in the coming days invite the parties “that want a new change” for talks.
Labor has promised an industrial policy that will funnel support to new green industries, like wind power, “blue hydrogen” that uses natural gas to produce an alternative fuel, and carbon capture and storage, which seeks to bury carbon dioxide under the ocean.
In the 2013 election, Labor was ousted from power, enabling the Conservatives' Erna Solberg to become prime minister and Norway's longest-serving leader. Gahr Stoere said Monday that he also wanted to thank Solberg for having been “a good prime minister.”
“We knew we needed a miracle --the Conservatives' work session is over,” said Solberg. “I congratulate Jonas Gahr Stoere with what looks like a clear majority.”
Her Conservatives suffered a setback, losing 4.7 percentage points which was dubbed by Norwegian broadcaster NRK as “the election's biggest loser.” Its former coalition partner, the Progress Party lost 3.4 percentage points, according to a preliminary counting of more than 93% of the votes by Norway's election commission.
The 60-year-old Solberg has been ahead of a minority government since 2020 -- before then it was coalitions with, among others, the populist Progress Party. Due to her long tenure, as well as her commitment to economic liberalism, she became known at home as “Iron Erna” -- inspired by the late British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher who was nicknamed “The Iron Lady” for her firm style.
Solberg was hoping to become the first prime minister to win a third consecutive four-year term. During her eight-year tenure, she has expanded oil exploration, cut taxes and sought to make public administration more efficient.
Any post-election horse trading is likely to be fraught for the Labor Party and Gahr Stoere. The Socialist Left won't offer its support lightly and the Center Party is also demanding a more aggressive approach toward shifting to renewable energy.
The Center Party made the largest gains in the election by grabbing nearly 14% of the votes - a 3.6 percentage point hike - with its leader Trygve Slagsvold Vedum, a farmer-turned-politician, noting with a large smile that it had become the third largest group in Stortinget after Labor and the Conservatives.
The campaign focused on the North Sea oil and gas that has helped make Norway one of the world's wealthiest countries. But fears about climate change have put the future of the industry in doubt. The country's biggest industry is responsible for over 40% of exports and directly employs more than 5% of the workforce.
On the other hand, Norwegians are among the most climate-conscious consumers in the world, with most new car purchases now being electric.
Most of Norway's oil and gas still comes from mature areas in the North Sea, but most of the country's untapped reserves are in the Barents Sea, above the Arctic Circle. That is a red line for environmentalists, who could play a crucial role in securing a majority government.
Gahr Stoere is a former civil servant who was elected to the Stortinget in 2009. He also owns a large part of his family's company, and most the fortune there comes from the sale in 1977 of a Norwegian company that made cast iron stoves and fireplaces.
Stoere also served as foreign minister from 2005-2013 under then-Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and took over the reins of the party when Stoltenberg became NATO's secretary general.
Nearly 3.9 million Norwegians were eligible to vote and more than 1.6 million of them voted in advance, according to Norway's election commission. Turnout was 76.3%, down from more than 78% in this nation of 5.3 million voted.
By Ivana Kottasová, CNN
Norway appears set to put an end to the Conservative-led coalition government's eight years of rule, preliminary results from the country's parliamentary election showed on Monday — a shift that environmental advocates have long awaited as they push to end the country's dependence on its lucrative oil industry
The current government, headed by Prime Minister Erna Solberg, Norway's longest-ever serving PM, has refused to put an end date on fossil fuel production, planning for its continuation beyond 2050.
The election campaign period was heavily focused on climate and the country's fossil fuel production, following the release of a damming UN climate science report and a heatwave that scorched much of the country during the summer.
The initial results are not final, but in Norway, they give a fairly reliable picture of real results.
Projections by the Norwegian public broadcaster NRK TV based on partial results showed that the Labor Party was on track to win some 25% of the vote, which translates to roughly 48 seats in the 169-seat parliament, suggesting a center-left alliance is likely to replace the Conservative-led coalition.
The Labor Party, led by former foreign minister Jonas Gahr Støre, calls for a gradual transition from fossil fuels. However, it will likely need the support of the Green Party, or another such small, climate-friendly outfit, which have been campaigning for an phase-out of the country's huge oil and gas industries.
"We have three green parties in Norway -- the Socialist Party, the Liberal Party and the Green Party," said Lars-Henrik Paarup Michelsen, the director of the Norwegian Climate Foundation..
"The polls indicate that our next government will be led by the Labour party. However, Labour will need the votes of at least one green party in order to get a majority in Parliament.
"Everyone' expects that climate policy will be tightened after the election," he added.
Both the Socialists and the Green Party posted gains in the election, according to the preliminary results. The Greens were poised to secure seven seats in the parliament, a major gain from 2017 when it had just one. The Socialists appeared to be on track to get 13 seats, two more then during the last election
"If this is close to the final result, it's a sharp increase for the Greens, it's a historic result for them and it will give them much bigger platform," said Fay Farstad, a senior researcher at CICERO, a Norwegian institute for interdisciplinary climate research.
However, Farstad added that the result is more nuanced, given the gains posted by the Center Party. "They support Norway's climate goals and agreements, but where they differ is on the issue on CO2 tax increases, they ran on the platform of rejecting it," she added.
Norway is Europe's largest oil producer and the world's third-biggest natural gas exporter. Even with political will, phasing out fossil fuels is unlikely to be quick.
Norwegians enjoy a high quality of life, largely because of its $1.1 trillion sovereign wealth fund -- the biggest in the world -- which invests revenues from the oil industry. Its website displays a real-time value of the fund, so Norwegians can marvel at their seemingly ever-growing riches.
But as the world becomes more conscious of the climate crisis and transitions to renewable sources of energy, there has been a concerted push in the country against the continued exploration of fossil fuels.
"There have been many debates over the course of the last year and a half or two years, but when the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] report came in August, just as the campaign was picking up steam, it really did put climate change at the center of attention," Ole Jacob Sending, director of research at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs think tank, told CNN.
While climate change itself is not up for a debate in Norway -- all of the main political parties acknowledge climate change is real and already happening -- the question of how to handle it is.
"Climate is now one of the main fault lines in Norwegian politics ... there are disagreements on what are the best policies and how urgent is it that we take action," Sending said.
"It's less of an elephant in the room now ... there's an increased recognition that Norway is having a challenge."
Norway's approach to the climate crisis has been paradoxical for some time. It has pledged to become carbon neutral by 2030, way ahead of many other rich countries. The US, UK and the EU are all hoping to achieve net zero by mid-century. The country is also offering generous subsidies for electric cars and investing heavily into renewable energy sources.
But the oil and gas sector remains crucial for the Norwegian economy, employing 200,000 people -- between 6% and 7% of its workforce -- and accounting for 14% of GDP and 41% of exports.
While scientists say emissions need to be halved over this decade, largely by phasing out fossil fuels, Norway has not set a date to even end the exploration of oil and gas.
The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate said earlier this year that it expected oil production to keep rising in the next few years, from 1.7 million barrels a day in 2020 to just over 2 million a day in 2025
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — The center-left bloc in Norway appears to have won Monday’s general election, according to the first official projection, which shows the ruling Conservatives would lose power after a campaign dominated by climate change and the future of the country’s oil and gas exploration industry.
With a projection based on a preliminary count of nearly 52% of the vote, the Labor Party and its two allies — the Socialist Left and the euroskeptic Center Party — appear to have won power. The left-leaning side in the Norwegian parliament would get a total of 101 seats while the current government would get 67 of the Stortinget assembly's 169 seats, according to the Norwegian election commission. A majority is 85 seats.
As Norway’s largest party, Labor will try to form a coalition government and its chief, 61-year-old Jonas Gahr Stoere, is poised to become Norway’s next leader. The Scandinavian country is not member of the European Union.
Labor has promised an industrial policy that will funnel support to new green industries, like wind power, “blue hydrogen” that uses natural gas to produce an alternative fuel, and carbon capture and storage, which seeks to bury carbon dioxide under the ocean.
“We will take our time to talk to the other parties, and we respect that this has not been decided until it is decided,” Gahr Stoere, told his party before the polling stations closed Monday. In the 2013 election, Labor was ousted from power, enabling the Conservatives' Erna Solberg to become prime minister and Norway’s longest-serving leader.
Any post-election horse trading is likely to be fraught for the Labor Party and Gahr Stoere. The Socialist Left won’t offer its support lightly and the Center Party is also demanding a more aggressive approach toward shifting to renewable energy.
The campaign focused on the North Sea oil and gas that has helped make Norway one of the world's wealthiest countries. But fears about climate change have put the future of the industry in doubt. The country’s biggest industry is responsible for over 40% of exports and directly employs more than 5% of the workforce.
On the other hand, Norwegians are among the most climate-conscious consumers in the world, with most new car purchases now being electric.
Most of Norway's oil and gas still comes from mature areas in the North Sea, but most of the country's untapped reserves are in the Barents Sea, above the Arctic Circle. That is a red line for environmentalists, who could play a crucial role in securing a majority government.
Gahr Stoere is a former civil servant who was elected to the Stortinget in 2009. He also owns a large part of his family’s company, and most the fortune there comes from the sale in 1977 of a Norwegian company that made cast iron stoves and fireplaces.
Stoere also served as foreign minister from 2005-2013 under then-Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and took over the reins of the party when Stoltenberg became NATO's secretary general.
Nearly 3.9 million Norwegians were eligible to vote and more than 1.6 million of them voted in advance, according to Norway’s election commission.
___
Follow all AP stories on climate change at https://apnews.com/hub/Climate.
Jan M. Olsen, The Associated Press
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