{"id":409488,"date":"2025-09-09T04:06:23","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T04:06:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/409488\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T04:06:23","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T04:06:23","slug":"norways-labour-party-wins-election-after-seeing-off-populist-surge-norway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/409488\/","title":{"rendered":"Norway\u2019s Labour party wins election after seeing off populist surge | Norway"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Norwegian Labour party has secured four more years in government after seeing off a surge of support for the populist right in a polarised election.<\/p>\n

Soon after the polls closed, <\/strong>the centre left was projected to win with 89 seats with the centre right taking 80 seats. A minimum of 85 seats are needed for a majority.<\/p>\n

Just two hours later, with 99% of the vote counted, the result had held, according to state broadcaster NRK.<\/p>\n

Labour, led by the prime minister, Jonas Gahr St\u00f8re, had clearly emerged as the largest party, but there was also a big swell in support for the rightwing Progress party, which was projected to have doubled in size in the last four years.<\/p>\n

The Conservative party, meanwhile, had its worst election in 20 years.<\/p>\n

St\u00f8re welcomed the results, playing down any shift to the right. \u201cThis is a signal to outside Norway<\/a> that social democracy can also win despite a right-wing wave,\u201d he told a jubilant crowd of Labour supporters chanting \u201cfour more years\u201c.<\/p>\n

The election was unusually close-fought and polarised, dominated by the cost of living, wealth taxes, oil fund investment in Israel and relations with Donald Trump<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On the right, there was a surge in support for the populist Progress party \u2013 especially among young men \u2013 in what has been described by some as \u201cthe Maga-fication\u201d of Norwegian politics.<\/p>\n

There was also discussion over its leader, Sylvi Listhaug, becoming prime minister in the event of a rightwing victory.<\/p>\n

But results suggest that St\u00f8re, 65, who has been prime minister since 2021, is likely to remain in office, with the former Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg, thought to have provided a significant boost for Labour in recent months, as finance minister.<\/p>\n

This was despite a campaign that was kicked off by strong criticism over the government\u2019s handling of the Norwegian oil fund\u2019s investment in Israel, which could contribute to complex negotiations with smaller leftwing parties to form a government.<\/p>\n

Gaute B\u00f8rstad Skjerv\u00f8, leader of the AUF, Labour\u2019s youth party, said it was \u201cthe comeback of the ages in Norwegian politics\u201d, adding that a year ago the party was \u201cdoomed\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow St\u00f8re has secured re-election. I take my hat off to this turnaround,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Conservative party leader, Erna Solberg, confirmed their defeat, telling her supporters in Oslo: \u201cWe can already state that the Conservative party is embarking on a new term in the Storting as an opposition party.\u201d<\/p>\n

Solberg, 64, who was already facing calls to resign, said: \u201cIt is my responsibility, and I am incredibly sorry for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Listhaug, 47, reportedly called St\u00f8re to congratulate him on his victory.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s fantastic. We\u2019re doing better than what the polls showed. So it\u2019s incredibly good,\u201d she said. Despite not having secured a majority, she said: \u201cWe still have reason to feel like winners today.\u201d<\/p>\n

A record 1.9 million people took part in early voting. By the time polls closed, most of the early votes were reportedly already counted.<\/p>\n

Despite the rise in support for the Progress party, a centre-left victory leaves Norway an outlier from its Nordic neighbours, Sweden and Finland, which are both led by rightwing governments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Norwegian Labour party has secured four more years in government after seeing off a surge of support…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":409489,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,12,14],"class_list":{"0":"post-409488","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115172368847523475","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/409489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}