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Norway Politics 2013

Voters across Norway cast ballots 09 September 2013 in a parliamentary election that led to a center-right victory, which could lead to stricter anti-immigration laws. Pre-election surveys had indicated the election would lead to a change in government, and a victory for Conservative leader Erna Solberg. The Conservative leader Erna Solberg was expected to put together and lead a center-right coalition in time for October, when Stoltenberg said he would step down after presenting his government's last budget.

The opposition parties thus had a month to sort out their disagreements and form a government platform with majority support in parliament. Having been appointed by the King in an extraordinary session of the Council of State on 16 October 2013, Erna Solberg’s government met for its first Council of State session at the Royal Palace.

The Conservatives won 48 seats, up from 30 in 2009, according to the projections. The Progress Party won 29 seats, down from 41. The Christian Democrats won 10 seats, unchanged from 2009 and the Liberal Party got 9, up from 2 in the last general election. Conservative leader Erna Solberg's stated aim of a four-party coalition remains unlikely; there is strong opposition within both Christian Democratic Party and the Liberals to participating in government with the Progress Party.

In the general election of 9 September, the parties Venstre (social liberal party), the Christian Democratic Party, the Progress Party and the Conservative Party won a historically strong majority in the Storting. All four parties promised their voters that this would lead to new policy and a new government. The Conservatives formed a coalition government with the Progress Party, which had called for stricter immigration laws. With 48 seats against the Progress Party's 29, Solberg's Conservatives should have an easier job negotiating a government platform suited to their own manifesto. The anti-tax and anti-immigration Progress Party, which once had among its members mass killer Anders Behring Breivik, won 16 percent of votes and could be kingmaker in a new center-right coalition after eight years of center-left rule. Progress Party had stated it would not support a government of which it is not a part, but without the Progress Party, the other three conservative parties had only 67 votes between them, well short of the 85 needed for a majority.