Norwegian local elections, 2015

[DavidB.]

Yeah, Bergen has this multi-generational urbanites/old money/bourgeoisie culture element. It is a natural Høyre stronghold in many ways. Though, it may be a thing of the past.

Interesting.

Rödt seems to have reached 14,6% in Tromsö, with 88% counted. Are there local factors at play, or is this the consequence of being a university town? One would expect MDG and V to have a better result...

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Does the Coastal Party still exist?

Man the Centre Party did great. I'm guessing they have an advantage in municipal elections.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Good to see Sentern doing well.

Could any of the Norwegian posters tell me why Os in Hordaland is such an Frp stronghold?

[Viewfromthenorth]

To answer some of your questions:

Os is an FrP stronghold because of popular local mayor Terje Søviknes, who has been in power for something approaching two decades.

Center Party has an advantage in municipal elections, but I suspect there are also some one-time voters who are afraid of the municipal mergers.

Høyre had a disastrous election in Bergen because of the chaos both in the party and the city's political system over the past years. Since city government chairwoman Monica Mæland resigned to become Minister of Trade in 2013, Bergen Høyre has been in a state of constant chaos and conflict, mostly over the route of the Bergen Light Rail (across or around Bryggen?). In addition, there's been a massive scandal these past few months over corruption allegations against mayor Trude Drevland.

Rødt's growth in Tromsø is both due to an unpopular city government and due to the university town factor, as well as some personality stuff.

FrP's core voter group is...um...varied. They do well among old people, new money, and the angry working- and middle class. Their base isn't really all that different from other right-wing populists in Europe, which shows you just how politically aware these people actually are.

Støre is safe for now. To their credit, Ap is better than certain other social democratic parties (hello ALP) at keeping a stable leadership cabal.

[politicus]

Thx for the background.

In addition, there's been a massive scandal these past few months over corruption allegations against mayor Trude Drevland.

Who also looks like this.. (and acts the part, so to speak).





Really hope the light rail will be led around Bryggen btw.

[Viewfromthenorth]

I should have specified: The options are either across Bryggen, or in a tunnel through some rather unstable soil that passes under some old historic buildings. No good options here, really.

Trude Drevland acts the part, yes. She is originally from Northern Norway, and overcompensates by being more Bergen-ish than the city's residents themselves.

[politicus]

Can't really help myself from posting a few pics of Trude Drevland with Erna Solberg. Talk about a difference in style:

[politicus]

I should have specified: The options are either across Bryggen, or in a tunnel through some rather unstable soil that passes under some old historic buildings. No good options here, really.

Yeah, but I still hope they do the tunnel anyway. Across is assured destruction of historical buildings, around is taking a risk, but potentially saving it all.

[Viewfromthenorth]

I should have specified: The options are either across Bryggen, or in a tunnel through some rather unstable soil that passes under some old historic buildings. No good options here, really.

Yeah, but I still hope they do the tunnel anyway. Across is assured destruction of historical buildings, around is taking a risk, but potentially saving it all.

There are studies which have shown that it would be safe. It's not going to cut through the Hanseatic houses, after all.

Brilliant pictures of Drevland, by the way.

[Viewfromthenorth]

Summary of the biggest municipalities:

Oslo: A massive loss for the center-right. Ap will now be the biggest party in the capital. They are not guaranteed to take power, however, as MDG is negotiating with both "blocks". The real winners here are MDG (who went from 1 to 4 seats) and Rødt (who went from 1 to 2). MDGs Shohaib Sultan may become mayor (a ceremonial position in Oslo, Bergen and Tromsø), and is already under fire for some allegedly homophobic comments he made years ago, plus of course many people are not entirely comfortable with making a Muslim the mayor.

Bergen: An even more dramatic change here, due to the scandals discussed above. Ap will be the biggest party in Bergen for the first time in forever, and have a majority with their coalition partners. KrF will likely get the mayorship, while Ap will chair the city government. Høyre lose 9 of their 24 seats. Ap, SV and MDG have made huge gains.

Trondheim: The capital of Central Norway was the largest city where the center-left governed before the election, and this will not change. Rita Ottervik (Ap) will stay on as mayor, with Ap taking 41% of the vote. With these gains, she can also narrow down the coalition to only including Ap, SV and MDG if she wants, ditching KrF and Sp.

Stavanger: What a mess. Both the major parties lost seats in a city that is feeling the effects of the falling oil price. A local party opposed to more road tolls, and *sigh* MDG made the biggest gains. The center-right will remain in control, however.

Bærum: In my home municipality, a suburb of Oslo, Høyre have lost their absolute majority, but needs the support of only one other party to govern. That will either be FrP or Venstre.

Kristiansand: The largest city in the far south did not see much in the way of changes. Six parties on the center-right have announced that they will rule in what must be an incredibly unwieldy coalition.

Fredrikstad: FrP used to hold this as one of their showcase municipalities. They lost power in 2011, and this time around, Ap are one seat short of an absolute majority. They will obviously find the support needed to govern.

Tromsø: The center-right will lose power in the largest city in the north. Headaches are on the way for Ap, though, who will have to get Rødts support to govern. Rødt may very well end up with the mayor. Also a huge loss for Høyre, who go from 16 to 9 seats out of 43.

Sandnes: Sandnes is perhaps the largest city where...unusual coalitions are the norm. Høyre had a disastrous election, and Ap will stay in power with support from FrP, SV and Sp.

Drammen: Høyre made a splash here and dropped from an absolute majority to 18/49 seats. However, they will continue to govern with support from FrP and either V or KrF.

On a final note, rumor has it that MDG in Bodø has been instructed to seek a coalition with the center-right, so that the party can still claim that they are "independent of the two blocks" (MDG mostly cooperates with the center-left, but stubbornly reject the notion that they are a center-left party)

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Lol, why are the Greens maintaining this weird Moderate Hero act? What is their aim?

[Viewfromthenorth]

Lol, why are the Greens maintaining this weird Moderate Hero act? What is their aim?

Lord knows. I don't have as much trouble with the concept of the "moderate hero" as some people on this board, but this positioning by MDG is just weird. Their party program clearly leans center-left, so why are they pretending otherwise? Hopefully this sham will be out of the way soon. I don't like block politics, but I have an even greater distaste for people lying to themselves.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Well, it is a dilemma with a lot of Green parties - how do you avoid becoming essentially an irrelevant annexe of the major social democratic party? that question tends to divide them between the sort of watermelon who says "we should chew around to Labour's left and monopolise voter's discontent with 'neoliberalism'"; and the sort of mango who says "we should basically work with whatever party promises us more bike lanes".

What would the Greens major demand be in this case? The aforementioned bike lanes? Cars banned from city centres? Phase-out of fossil heating? Divestment?

[Viewfromthenorth]

Trondheim update:
http://www.nrk.no/trondelag/dette-er-otterviks-nye-allianse-1.12557654

Mayor Rita Ottervik (Ap) decided to do the opposite of what I thought. Her alliance will now consist of no less than seven parties: Ap, MDG, SV, V, Pp, KrF and Sp. For English speakers that translates to the Labour Party, the Greens, the Socialist Left, the Liberals, the Christian Democrats and the Center Party. This coalition controls 47 of 67 seats in the Trondheim City Council.

Hilde Opoku from MDG will become the party's first ever deputy mayor.

[politicus]

MDGs Shohaib Sultan may become mayor (a ceremonial position in Oslo, Bergen and Tromsø)

Why does Tromsø follow the two big cities on this when Stavanger and Trondheim apparently have Mayors with real power? Can Norwegian cities just organize their own "constitution" and decide how to organize local government?

Tromsø: The center-right will lose power in the largest city in the north. Headaches are on the way for Ap, though, who will have to get Rødts support to govern. Rødt may very well end up with the mayor. Also a huge loss for Høyre, who go from 16 to 9 seats out of 43.

43 seats are a lot for a town that size. In comparison Copenhagen only has 55 seats in the Citizens Representation and Oslo has 59 in Bystyret. Why is the City Council this large up there?

[Viewfromthenorth]

Good question about the City Council members. I suppose it could help to increase the diversity of parties on the council...

Yes, Norwegian municipalities can elect to either go for "formannskapsmodellen" (i.e. mayors with real power, and an executive board elected proportionally from all parties), or "byparlamentarisme" ("city parliamentarism", i.e. a formal coalition government running the city). Oslo, Bergen and Tromsø have elected to choose model number three, as have several counties (where it is entirely pointless). I would say that solution works in the biggest cities only, with Tromsø being a borderline case. Moss (a city of around 30 000 in Østfold) tried to introduce it some years ago, to the tune of laughter and despair from the rest of the country.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Interesting, I've never really thought about how the forms of local government differ in the Nordic countries. Really cool that the Norwegian councils can choose between two different systems. I hope this isn't something that is planned to be abolished in the government's terrible municipal merger reform?   

In Sweden of course we have a single form where the city council proportionally elects an executive board (kommunstyrelse) containing both governing and opposition parties, with the chairman of that board being in effect  the mayor of that city, and is mostly translated as mayor in international contexts. However the Swedish word for mayor, borgmästare, is never used for them, instead any full-time politician on the municipal level is called kommunalråd (or borgarråd in Stockholm, because Stockholm is special ). To confuse things though, some places have however recreated an honorary title of borgmästare . So we both have the real mayors (which are not called that) and honorary mayors in a few places, with-out actual power.   

[politicus]

We have three different models in Denmark as well. It is just that only the 5 biggest municipalities: Copenhagen, Frederiksberg, Århus, Odense and Ålborg are allowed to choose between two models. The rest have to use the committee model, where there is an executive Mayor and then various committees (economy, school, social services etc.), with the parties represented proportionally and chairmanships and the Mayor post divided between whatever parties can form a winning coalition (nothing for the opposition).

The bigger ones can choose magistrate government with administrations headed by Mayors (Copenhagen) or Councillors (the rest) distributed proportionally among parties and a Lord Mayor (Copenhagen) or Mayor at the top as the leader of the city government (very much with real power). Right now only Århus, Ålborg and Frederiksberg have this in the pure form. Copenhagen and Odense have since 1998 opted for the intermediary form with shared leadership of the administration between committees and Councillors/Mayors. In this you have 5-6 committees running the administration, preparing cases, executing decisions, deciding minor stuff etc. The committee chairmen are still called Councillors/Mayors and are full time politicians (unlike committee chairmen in minor municipalities) leading the administration in their field (schools, traffic etc.). The chairmen of the other committees are then born members of the Economy Committee. Councillors/Mayor posts are still distributed proportionally between the parties. Copenhagen at one point applied for a "winner takes all" model (similar to the minor/medium municipalities), but was turned down by the Ministry of the Interior (during the VK-government and hardly surprising since this would have shut out the centre-right from any influence).

The Mayor/Lord Mayor is always the leader in DK and the idea of a ceremonial Mayor was completely alien to me. Never really thought about that possibility.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Thanks Politicus, very interesting.

It should be noted that, in Sweden, the city councils are allowed to create and delegate power to committees as well. In larger municipalities there are always a number of committees, my city has as much as 12 committees for example. In small rural municipalities however committees are rarely used today. 

 

[Viewfromthenorth]

The government has no plans to abolish the concept of municipal parliamentarism, in fact I suspect they want more of the new, enlarged municipalities to choose this system. Most of the opposition to this system comes from the left, who are worried about the fact that this also means that more of the process can be kept away from the public. Which is to a certain extent a valid argument, but to me it's an argument for expanding freedom of information laws, not for abolishing the whole system.

[Viewfromthenorth]

Not a good day for the Greens, who are showing some of their inexperience.

In the town of Gjøvik, they joined in a rainbow coalition of sorts with FrP, H, KrF, Pp and Sp to get rid of Ap, who have been in control there for over 90 years straight. Today, MDG got cold feet, decided to drop the coalition and support Ap instead, claiming that they had been put under "immense pressure" to sign the deal with the center-right parties.

In the industrial settlement of Årdal, MDGs single representative on the new municipal council decided to let her five-year old son draw lots to find out which parties she would enter into negotiations with. The son picked the center-left.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Good news for the Socialist Left?

[Viewfromthenorth]

These incidents will probably be forgotten soon. If they end up being part of a larger pattern, it will be a different story.

[politicus]

In the industrial settlement of Årdal, MDGs single representative on the new municipal council decided to let her five-year old son draw lots to find out which parties she would enter into negotiations with. The son picked the center-left.

lol

[Zanas]

In the industrial settlement of Årdal, MDGs single representative on the new municipal council decided to let her five-year old son draw lots to find out which parties she would enter into negotiations with. The son picked the center-left.

lol

That's not really more laughable than drawing lots to appoint jurors who can decide on a capital punishment... Sortition is not way more laughable than democracy, both have their merits and drawbacks.