Norwegian local elections, 2015
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Author Topic: Norwegian local elections, 2015  (Read 17705 times)
Viewfromthenorth
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« on: June 09, 2015, 04:44:29 AM »

-   Elections to 428 municipal councils (give or take a few), 18 county councils (Oslo does not have a separate county council), 15 borough councils in Oslo, and the local council for Longyearbyen will take place on September 14.
-       The electoral system is open list proportional representation, using Saint-Laguës modified method (i.e. first divisor is 1.4 instead of 1).
-   The elections are expected to feature a major backlash for the governing right-wing coalition (Conservatives, Progress Party) and its allied parties (Liberals, Christian People’s), who risk losing control of several major cities. The Labour Party, Center Party and the Greens are expected to make major gains.
-   These elections will hopefully be the last local elections before a major merger of municipalities is completed.
-   The biggest issue at the moment is whether or not Red (a small, but relevant left-wing party) should be included in the national leader’s debates.
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CrabCake
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« Reply #1 on: June 09, 2015, 06:30:12 AM »

IT should be remembered that the 2011 elections, especially for one held during the tail-end of an increasingly unpopular government was quite good for the left. Progress had a disasterous election,  because of the impact of a paedo scandal, infighting and the devastating impact of the Oslo and Utoya tragedies. Therefore FrP had a terrible election all round, bottoming to joke results in Oslo.

Meanwhile the Socialist Left are in even more turmoil, seeing as the rise of the Greens and Reds are stealing both of their niches (especially the former, they spent a decade carefully cultivating an environmentalist image which was promptly blown out the water). I doubt they'll make it pass the threshold next time around.

Currently Conservatives run all of the major cities, including Oslo and Trondheim.

What's happening to local government? Are they becoming unitary or something?
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CrabCake
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« Reply #2 on: June 09, 2015, 06:34:04 AM »

Some polls from January:

https://mobile.twitter.com/electograph/status/560190126757015552
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Viewfromthenorth
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« Reply #3 on: June 09, 2015, 06:43:56 AM »

What's happening to the municipalities is that they are currently ridiculously undersized, and overburdened - meaning that the central government is becoming increasingly powerful. The plan is to merge the smaller municipalities into larger units - so that, say, a twenty-minute commute does not involve crossing six municipal boundaries (this actually happens in the Oslo area). The new municipalities will hopefully be able to assume more responsibilities and powers. Everybody (well, except the Center Party) agrees that something needs to be done, but the current government is the first to have a concrete plan about it.

2011 was a particularly good election for the left after a term and a half in government, but to an even greater extent it could be called a good election for the big parties. The Conservatives absorbed most of the votes lost by FrP, and had one of their best local election results ever. Much of that is going to fall this autumn.

Another good polling site (though in Norwegian) is pollofpolls.no, which carries each local and national poll, as well as a poll of polls for each municipality.
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CrabCake
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« Reply #4 on: June 09, 2015, 06:56:45 AM »

Thanks

also, why are there national leadership debates before local elections? Huh
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Viewfromthenorth
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« Reply #5 on: June 09, 2015, 07:10:26 AM »

Thanks

also, why are there national leadership debates before local elections? Huh

I wish my answer was "good question", but in practice it is because the local elections are basically a referendum on the performance of the government of the day.
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Viewfromthenorth
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« Reply #6 on: June 15, 2015, 07:44:15 AM »

Present poll of polls:

Governing parties
Høyre (Conservatives) 24,1 (-3,9)
Fremskrittspartiet (Progress) 10,1 (-1,3)

Parties supporting the government
Kristelig Folkeparti (Christian People's) 5,4 (-0,2)
Venstre (Liberals) 4,9 (-1,4)

Opposition parties
Arbeiderpartiet (Labour) 36,6 (+4,9)
Senterpartiet (Center) 6,1 (-0,6)
Sosialistisk Venstreparti (Socialist Left) 4,0 (-0,1)
Rødt (Red) 1,4 (-0,1)

Others (50/50 local parties and Greens) 7,3 (+2,5)
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Viewfromthenorth
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« Reply #7 on: June 15, 2015, 07:54:26 AM »

Currently Conservatives run all of the major cities, including Oslo and Trondheim.

Just noticed this: the center-right run all major cities EXCEPT Trondheim. Trondheim is run by a very broad center-left coalition that will cruise to re-election. The conservative administrations in Oslo and Bergen are in deep trouble.
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Zanas
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« Reply #8 on: June 23, 2015, 03:25:56 AM »

What's happening to the municipalities is that they are currently ridiculously undersized, and overburdened - meaning that the central government is becoming increasingly powerful. The plan is to merge the smaller municipalities into larger units - so that, say, a twenty-minute commute does not involve crossing six municipal boundaries (this actually happens in the Oslo area).
Hah. I can go for a twenty-minute walk and cross six municipal boundaries, n00bs.
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Viewfromthenorth
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« Reply #9 on: June 23, 2015, 04:13:06 PM »

What's happening to the municipalities is that they are currently ridiculously undersized, and overburdened - meaning that the central government is becoming increasingly powerful. The plan is to merge the smaller municipalities into larger units - so that, say, a twenty-minute commute does not involve crossing six municipal boundaries (this actually happens in the Oslo area).
Hah. I can go for a twenty-minute walk and cross six municipal boundaries, n00bs.

This is why everything in your country is run from Paris.
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DavidB.
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« Reply #10 on: July 31, 2015, 07:34:59 PM »

Does anyone know why the government is unpopular? Just because it's the government...?
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Viewfromthenorth
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« Reply #11 on: August 01, 2015, 05:04:30 AM »

Does anyone know why the government is unpopular? Just because it's the government...?

Partly just because it's the government, partly because they aren't very good public relations managers. Many of the reforms they have introduced can be considered necessary, but they have been introduced in a very clumsy fashion.
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Hydera
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« Reply #12 on: August 01, 2015, 08:32:56 AM »

Does anyone know why the government is unpopular? Just because it's the government...?

governments in norway tend to become unpopular really fast.

also this government had to deal with a 50% reduction in oil prices. This is pretty bad for a cpuntry that gets a lot of income from oil exports, so economic angst tends to empower the opposition no matter the party  ideology. Tories benefitted from labour having to deal with the GFC. and democrats benefitted from the republicans having to deal with the GFC.
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #13 on: August 01, 2015, 09:24:31 AM »

Obviously being in government often does that (and a pretty consistent feature of politics in all Scandinavian countries is that governments often stage decent comebacks from midterm slumps even if not always enough to get re-elected) but there are also specific reasons, i.e. the fact that they're kind of terrible at the whole governing business.
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politicus
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« Reply #14 on: August 01, 2015, 09:37:27 AM »
« Edited: August 01, 2015, 09:39:24 AM by politicus »

Obviously being in government often does that (and a pretty consistent feature of politics in all Scandinavian countries is that governments often stage decent comebacks from midterm slumps even if not always enough to get re-elected) but there are also specific reasons, i.e. the fact that they're kind of terrible at the whole governing business.

Having to rely on support from centrist and/or social liberal parties is a problem as well for a government that was elected on being tough as nails on a number of issues. The first Blue-Blue (= dark blue) government has turned out to be pretty moderate on immigration and justice (by necessity) and that disappoints certain segments (incl. many marginal voters). "Iron Erna" and her allies in the Progress Party have governed pretty much like an ordinary centre-right coalition
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DavidB.
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« Reply #15 on: August 01, 2015, 10:04:27 AM »

That was the impression I had of this government as well. Being part of such a moderate government will doubtlessly hurt FrP in the next general election, although FrP supporters on the right of this government obviously don't have many options.

But the dynamics in the local elections will of course be different for FrP, who already hit rock bottom in 2011 due to the Utoya disaster.
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Viewfromthenorth
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« Reply #16 on: August 01, 2015, 03:10:14 PM »

They may not have bottomed out in 2011. We shall see what happens.

As for the governing business, they have been squeezed from two sides. Many FrP voters are disappointed that the government is not tough as nails, yes, but many Høyre voters are also disappointed that the government is...well, conducting center-right economic policy. Their entire 2013 campaign was basically "We are Arbeiderpartiet except we'll get things done".
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CrabCake
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« Reply #17 on: August 01, 2015, 06:27:18 PM »

I'm surprised FrP haven't got a populist splinter. They always struck me as too ... middle-class to play the Swedish Democrats/Folkspartei game that well.
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freefair
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« Reply #18 on: August 02, 2015, 09:56:10 PM »

I'm surprised FrP haven't got a populist splinter. They always struck me as too ... middle-class to play the Swedish Democrats/Folkspartei game that well.

Acually they have 2 splinter groups, the Liberals People's Party ( hardline right-libertarians, not the old Venstre spin off) and the Norwegian Democrats (welfare-chauvanists), but they are both basically hyper niche failures.
Also, Progress can afford to coherently be pro-free market, privatised, low tax globalised capitalism AND pro-welfare & high public service quality, because thanks to the huge oil money surplus they do not have to choose between these goals.
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Viewfromthenorth
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« Reply #19 on: August 03, 2015, 03:08:59 AM »

I'm surprised FrP haven't got a populist splinter. They always struck me as too ... middle-class to play the Swedish Democrats/Folkspartei game that well.

Acually they have 2 splinter groups, the Liberals People's Party ( hardline right-libertarians, not the old Venstre spin off) and the Norwegian Democrats (welfare-chauvanists), but they are both basically hyper niche failures.
Also, Progress can afford to coherently be pro-free market, privatised, low tax globalised capitalism AND pro-welfare & high public service quality, because thanks to the huge oil money surplus they do not have to choose between these goals.

This is an excellent point. There's a reason they're the only party that want to spend more of the oil surplus, so that they can expand what is already perhaps the most spacious budget in the western world.
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Viewfromthenorth
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« Reply #20 on: August 04, 2015, 03:17:27 AM »

A friend of mine summarized the election campaign at the moment as "Høyre is talking about Arbeiderpartiet, while Arbeiderpartiet is talking about Høyre talking about Arbeiderpartiet, because none of them have much else to talk about."

Norfakta poll for Nationen and Klassekampen (two minor newspapers)
Labour 35,9
Conservatives 24,6
Progress Party 9,9
Center Party 6,7
Christian People's Party 5,6
Liberals 5,4
Green Party 4,4
Socialist Left 4,2
Red 1,4
Others 1,9

This poll is something of an outlier, Liberals and Greens are way higher than usual.
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Viewfromthenorth
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« Reply #21 on: August 05, 2015, 08:44:20 AM »

The first U-turn of the election campaign has been made, as the Labour Party has gone from being a semi-enthusiastic supporter of forced municipal mergers to being an ardent opponent in the course of a few months.
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Viewfromthenorth
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« Reply #22 on: August 06, 2015, 06:33:03 PM »

First TV debate between Prime Minister Erna Solberg (Conservative) and opposition leader Jonas Gahr Støre (Labour) tonight. Didn't catch it myself, but the big take-away for the media was an amusing and unusual blunder from Støre. Talking about the government's wealth tax cuts, which should be one of his strongest attack lines, Støre mentioned the DeepOcean subsea company, which he has visited recently. He noted that the company's owners didn't ask for those tax cuts. Solberg quickly seized the opportunity to point out that DeepOcean is a Dutch company, and its owners do not pay taxes in Norway at all...
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Viewfromthenorth
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« Reply #23 on: August 10, 2015, 02:08:13 PM »

New poll for TV2 by TNS Gallup:

Labour 32,2 (-5,2)
Conservative 26,5 (+3)
Progress 9,9 (-0,4)
Center Party 7,2 (+0,3)
Christian People's 5,0 (+0,3)
Liberal 4,5 (-0,8)
Greens 4,4 (+0,3)
Socialist Left 4,1 (+0,4)
Red 2,4 (+1)
Others 3,7 (+1,1)

Jonas Gahr Støre is facing criticism for his debating skills and lack of ideas.
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DavidB.
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« Reply #24 on: August 12, 2015, 10:06:28 AM »

New poll for TV2 by TNS Gallup:

Labour 32,2 (-5,2)
Conservative 26,5 (+3)
Progress 9,9 (-0,4)
Center Party 7,2 (+0,3)
Christian People's 5,0 (+0,3)
Liberal 4,5 (-0,8)
Greens 4,4 (+0,3)
Socialist Left 4,1 (+0,4)
Red 2,4 (+1)
Others 3,7 (+1,1)

Jonas Gahr Støre is facing criticism for his debating skills and lack of ideas.
Are the gains/losses based on the last poll or on the 2011 results?
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