Norwegian local elections, 2015

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-   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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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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Thanks

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

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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Sorry, should have specified: last poll. Labour are still 0,5 above their 2011 result.

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A true treat of a newspaper cover. From Fremover, the local newspaper in the northern town of Narvik:

"Narvik election campaign heats up:
- Paul called me a whore

- No, I said you're acting like one

Narvik politicians Paul Rosenmeyer (Conservative) and Trond Millerjord (Christian People's) at each other's throats"

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Christians_(Norway)

Do they have any chances in elections? I mean if there is any place that they can actually win something?

They should win some seats on municipal councils, they may pick up some seats in county councils if they are lucky. Most of these gains will be in the counties of Hordaland, Rogaland, Vest-Agder and Aust-Agder - i.e. the Norwegian Bible Belt.

They will not get any mayors, nor are they likely to be a major coalition partner anywhere, however.

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Respons for the Aftenposten and Bergens Tidende newspapers:

Labour 29,8 (-1,9 on 2011)
Conservative 25,3 (-2,7)
Progress 11,1 (-0,3)
Center 7,9 (1,2)
Liberal 5,6 (-0,7)
Christian People's 5,4 (-0,2)
Greens 4,8 (3,9)
Others (local parties etc) 4,2
Socialist Left 3,4 (-0,7)
Red 2,5 (1,0)

Jonas Gahr Støre (Labour leader) has been taking heavy criticism for his...uninspired debate performances.

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While this election campaign has been dominated by national issues (OMG UNEMPLOYMENT IS APPROACHING FOUR! FOUR! PERCENT!!111) there have been some defining issues in the largest cities.

In Oslo, the dominating theme is "let's see who can catch their rivals making the worst lie". The Labour Party has pledged to introduce a municipal property tax (the only municipal tax allowed under current Norwegian law), and the Conservatives set up a calculator to let homeowners figure out how much they would pay under this new, "horrible" tax. Unfortunately it was found to be using entirely the wrong numbers, and threatening people with much higher taxes than the Labour Party's plan would actually entail. To even the score, Labour's Raymond Johansen made an outrageous claim that Oslo has the worst daycare coverage of all major cities in Norway. This was false, and the Conservatives pounced on it.

Other than that, the biggest development in the capital has been the Progress Party's elder statesman, Carl I Hagen shooting off his mouth, stating that Europe needs to do the same as Australia with the refugee boats coming across the Mediterranean (i.e. turn them back). The Christian People's Party's top candidate announced that his party will not be part of a city government with the Progress Party after these elections. I'll be interested to see how true that promise holds if the center-right can manage to hold on to a thread-bare majority.

In Bergen, the main issue has been the decaying standard of city schools. Not the standard of teaching, mind you - the actual school buildings. It seems like every week there is a new rat, mold or fungus problem. This led to a vote of non-confidence against the head of the city government in 2012. The center-right is fighting for their lives in this city as well, and the Liberal Party has announced that they will work with whatever side ends up with the most seats.

Trondheim is seeing smooth sailing. The center-right is trying in vain to point out a worrying municipal debt situation, but people are generally satisfied with the services the city is providing and the governing broad center-left coalition will cruise to re-election.

I haven't really seen many election themes coming out of Stavanger yet, other than the economic slowdown. As Norway's oil capital, the city has suffered heavily from the drop in prices over the past year. Over the summer, only 16 homes were sold in a city of around 125 000 inhabitants. People are not confident about the future, but it doesn't seem to have a very direct effect on the city's electoral politics.

In Tromsø, the center-left is almost certain to get the majority. In fact, Red may end up getting the mayor, as they are the second-strongest party to the left of center and Labour will want to concentrate on chairing the city government.

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And now: a new scandal!

Political advertising on television is illegal here for some reason. Minister of Justice Anders Anundsen attempted to circumvent this ban by making a reportedly rather low-budget video about all the good things his department has done since he entered the job. What makes this a scandal is that he has used civil servants and tax money to do this. Although not actually political advertising, it is reportedly close enough that it is being treated as such by the media and other politicians.

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A yowser of a poll (InFact for VG) in Tromsø, where Rødt have been performing quite well for some time, but never at this level:

Labour (Ap) 25,5 (-0,9)
Conservatives (Høyre) 18,0 (-18,0)
Red (Rødt) 15,0 (7,8)
Progress Party (FrP) 13,4 (0,4)
Socialist Left Party (SV) 9,4 (3,7)
Liberal Party (Venstre) 5,8 (2,0)
The Greens (MdG) 5,3 (3,5)
Christian People's Party (KrF) 3,2 (0,1)
Center Party (Sp) 2,2 (-0,2)
Others (Andre) 2,3 (1,7)
Changes are compared to last election in Tromsø.

Latest national poll by InFact for VG:
Labour 30,5
Conservative 22,5
Progress Party 14,1
Center Party 7,4
Christian People's 5,6
The Greens 5,3
Liberal Party 5,1
Socialist Left 3,8
Red 2,3

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High school students typically have a mock election in the weeks before the real thing. Fringe parties typically score higher in these elections than in the real ones.

Here are the nationwide results, sans around 40 schools that haven't reported in yet:
Party   2015   2013   2011
Ap   31,9   23   29,8
H   16,4   28,2   24
FrP   10,5   15,6   16,5
SV   7,5   5   5
MDG   6,7   3,8   1,4
V   6,5   6,7   6,8
Sp   5,5   4,2   5
Rødt   4,8   3,7   3,6
Pirat   4,1   4,3   N/A
KrF   3,2   2,8   3,5
Andre   2,9   2,7   4,4

Overall, a big gain for the left (Ap+SV+MDG+Sp+R).

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Believe me, they will cover it in the same amount of detail. NRK, TV2, Aftenposten and VG should all be good places to look for coverage. Results start coming in at 21:00 CEST on Monday.

Myself, I will be working at a polling station and am both unable to and banned from releasing any results until at least 23:00.

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How is the government (in particularly Progress) reacting to the refugee crisis?

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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.

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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.