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Norway - Politics

Until the 1981 election, Norway had been governed by majority Labor Party governments since 1935, except for three periods (1963, 1965-71, and 1972-73). The Labor Party lost its majority in the Storting in the 1981 elections. From 1981 to 2005, governments alternated between Labor minority governments and Conservative-led coalition governments.

The Norwegian Progress Party formally emerged in 1976, but existed as only a ‘small and noisy outlier" that emulated the anti-tax Progress Party in Denmark for the nest deeade. Under the leadership of Carl Hagen, the Progress Party in the late 1980s seized upon an anti-immigrant line with unprecedented success. At the 1997 Storting election the Progress Party earned 15 parliamentary seats, tying it with the Christian People's Party as the country‘s second strongest political party. The Progress Party is in many ways analogous to the American Tea Party, though in Europe they are drivenby opposition to recent mass immigration of foreigners, especially Muslims.

Jens Stoltenberg's Second Government was appointed by King Harald V on 17 October 2005. It was a majority government representing the Labor Party, the Socialist Left Party and the Centre Party. In the run-up to the 2005 election, Labor Party leader Jens Stoltenberg reached out to the Socialist Left (SV) party and agrarian Center party to form a "Red-Green" coalition government that commanded a majority of seats in parliament. Stoltenberg's government was the first majority government in Norway in over 20 years, but the governing coalition has had to bridge substantial policy differences to build this majority. The 2005 election was historic because it was the first time the Labor Party was in a coalition government since the 1940s, the first time SV was ever in a government, and the first time the Center Party joined with the socialist parties as opposed to the right-of-center parties.

Norway's center-right alliance, led by Conservative Erna Solberg - nicknamed "Iron Erna" for her tough image, claimed victory in the national election 09 September 2013. Incumbent Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg conceded defeat after eight years in office. With three quarters of votes counted, a bloc of four center-right parties had won 96 of 169 seats in parliament. Prime Minister Stoltenberg's three-party coalition won 72, compared to the 86 they had in the outgoing parliament.

Conservative Party teamed up with the Progress Party in a minority coalition. The Progress Party's popularity had to a large extent hinged on its promises to be different from all the other - slightly boring - middle-of-the-road Norwegian political parties. For decades, Norway's Conservative Party considered the Progress Party to be too radical to bring into a coalition government. Their anti-immigration and sometimes anti-Islamic rhetoric often alienated them from the rest of Norway's largely moderate and centrist political establishment. So too did their populist promises of spending more of the country's oil wealth on everything from tax cuts to road construction.

Two smaller center-right parties promised their support in parliament. Minority governments are not uncommon in Norway, and usually govern without too much trouble.