| Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
From: [email protected] (Cynthia Kandolf)
Subject: Re: Norwegian election
Sender: [email protected] (NetNews Administrator)
Organization: University of Trondheim, Norway
Date: 19 Sep 93 16:48:06
This is my personal opinion, and not to be taken as the official view
of any political party or other organization. Just covering myself ;-)
>Why did the Progress Party (Fremskittpartiet?) lose so many seats? I
>thought that it was also an anti-EC party.
Fremskrittspartiet is pro-EC. They also have considerably less party
discipline than most Norwegian political parties. For instance, they
often say that they are _not_ anti-immigrant, but the representative
and first candidate from Soer-Troendelag (the county that includes
Trondheim) published an extremely anti-immigrant pamphlet shortly
before the election. He lost his seat, but no immediate action (like
denouncing him or promising not to put him on the ballot in 1997) was
taken.
I think people saw them as a disorganized party with no firm stand on
most issues. Additionally, some of their more prominent members have a
nasty habit of getting on people's nerves.
And finally, correct me if i'm wrong, but I think they did unusually
well in the 1989 election. If you compare this year's result with
1985, the loss doesn't look so big.
>Why did the Conservatives (Hoyre) lose seats?
Hoeyre didn't talk much about the issues that concerned people. They
knew their pro-EC position could lose them support, so they started on
other issues like tax reduction that didn't really catch the attention
they needed. Additionally, they've had a leadership problem for a
while now, and many people had trouble imagining Kaci Kullmann Five as
the next prime minister.
>Why did Labour (Arbeter?) gain seats?
Arbeiderpartiet simply seemed to have convinced enough people that they
were the best choice for the next four years. Although they are
officially pro-EC, there are many openly anti-EC candidates in its
ranks. So their position didn't hurt them as much as, say, Hoeyre's
did. They managed to project a position of leadership. (The fact that
Holst's role in the Israel-PLO negotiations came out just before the
election couldn't have hurt them, either, of course.)
>Why did the Marxists gain so much support in Oslo?
If you mean the fellow from Roed Valgallianse (RV), Erik Folkevord, it
was his personal popularity that won him his seat, more than his
politics. He has been a popular member of Oslo's City Council for some
time now, well-known for pointing out "irregularities" in their way of
doing things. Some people apparently decided it was time to send him
after bigger prey.
Other parties:
Senterpartiet (the Center Party, once called the Farmer's Party. Their
support was still largely in rural areas until this election.) They did
extremely well, but only because of their anti-EC views. The other
parties against the EC did not present a reasonable alternative for
many people. It will be interesting to see how they do in 1997.
Sosialistisk Venstreparti. (Also known as Urealistisk Hyggeparti in
our house, go ahead, drag out the flames). Lost seats. Badly. They
strike me as a party without much of a program, simply choosing the
popular issues and following them. They hoped their anti-EC stand
would carry them through, but their lack of position on other issues
hurt them badly.
Venstre. I'm still stumped. I would have sworn they had no chance to
get anyone in Parliament, and now they have not one but two
representatives. Any takers on this one?
In general: turnout was, by Norwegian standards, low. It was
especially low in the three northernmost counties. Two reasons which I
think might have caused this:
1. Some voters wanted to vote for a party which was against the EC, but
didn't like any of the alternatives. (Senterpartiet angered some
people and comforted others by saying that regardless of the outcome of
a referendum on EC membership, they would vote against. It apparently
didn't hurt them, of course, but may have caused a few people to stay
home.) Alternately, some people who had, say, voted Arbeiderpartiet
all their lives may have decided they couldn't this time because Ap is
officially pro-EC... but couldn't decide who else to vote for.
2. The EC issue dominated the campaign. Some people who were simply
sick of it all, or who were more interested in other issues (which got
very little attention), may have just stayed home.
-Cindy Kandolf
[email protected]
Trondheim, Norway
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From: [email protected] (PC Jorgensen)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: Norwegian election
Date: 19 Sep 1993 22:53:31 GMT
Organization: UiO
> Fremskrittspartiet is pro-EC.
Well, I think that's too simple. Their party line is that they'll abide
by the result of the referendum ("Let the People decide" - Hagen says).
The leadership seems pro, but less so these days, after the so-called
"crown princes" (youngish people, representing an ideological spectre
from Thatcherism to libertarianism) were squeezed out. I think a lot of
members and sympathizers on the local level are anti, or at least
luke-warm or cold in their feelings toward the community. Those
sympathizers who have a strongly nationalistic bent would accordingly
have gone over to the Sp.
> Venstre. I'm still stumped. I would have sworn they had no chance to
> get anyone in Parliament, and now they have not one but two
> representatives. Any takers on this one?
Two? Has something happened today? I thought they just had this guy
from Hordaland county...
Hordaland is Venstre country, traditionally and historically, and their
campaign (we need Votes, not Sympathy) might have struck a cord there
(as well as elsewhere in Norway - well, it worked on me!) and given
them the extra push they needed (they had already been just below the
number of votes needed for quite some time there). Their candidate from
Hordaland seems to me quite different from Venstre in Oestlandet (for
instance, Doerum). He speaks like a green Tory...
P C Jorgensen
Graduate student
Department of East European and Oriental Studies
University of Oslo
Norway
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| From: [email protected] (Antti A Lahelma)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Extreme right party wins elections in Norway
Date: 13 Sep 1995 22:26:13 +0300
Organization: University of Helsinki
TERHI WIDTH - OSLO
"The populist right-wing Progress Party emerged as the triumphant winner
of last monday's municipal elections in Norway. Led by Carl I. Hagen, the
Progress Party received 12.1% of the votes - five percent more than four
years ago. As a result, the racism-advocating Progress Party is now the
third largest political party in Norway, after the Worker's Party currently
heading the government and the conservative H�yre. In Oslo, the Progress
Party increased its support by as much as 20 percent. More than 30000
foreigners live in Oslo.
Party leader Hagen considers the victory as a sign of discontent among
Norwegians towards the present refugee and immigrataion policies. The success
of the Progress Party mixes Norway's political situation, as other conserva-
tive parties avoid close co-operation with the racist Progress Party.
The biggest loser of the elections was the Socialist Leftist party (SV),
occupying the left extreme of the political map, whose support collapsed
to 6.1 percent - a half of what it received in the previous elections.
SV considers this to be due to its election themes, the environment and
unemployment, getting lost in the populist propaganda of the Progress Party.
The Worker's Party, leading the cabinet, collected 31.3% of votes, H�yre
19.9 percent, and the Center Party 11.8 percent."
LVX,
--
Antti Lahelma "Tragedy is the farce that involves our
[email protected] sympathies: farce is the tragedy that
University of Helsinki happens to outsiders." --Aldous Huxley
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