Center-Right parties finish ahead in Norway locals

by Clifford F. Thies

With 99 percent of the vote counted, it looks as though the Social Democrats and their coalition partners have won a narrow victory, 189 sets to 186, and will be replacing the center-right government that has ruled in that country for ten years. The center-right bloc had been trailing by 6 points in polls as recently as two weeks ago, made a dramatic come back but still fell 0.6 points short in the popular vote and were hurt in the allocation of seats by the failure of the Christian Democrats to cross the threshold for representation. As prognosticated by this site, the Danish Liberal Party edged out the Social Democrats as the largest party. But, there appears no way for the Liberals to assemble a majority coalition.

In local elections in Norway, the center-right parties finished 8 points ahead of the center-left parties, an improvement of 3 points from their margin in local elections in 2007. Given that the center-right parties won more popular votes than the center-right in the most recent parliamentary election, and only failed to win a majority of the seats due to a quirk in the country's election law, the center-right is looking to the next parliamentary election with some anticipation.