There has been local - municipal and county - elections in Norway today, and you not having read about the campaign and the scandals here probably says a bit about how I feel about this election. In Norway, the local politicians are little more than elected bureaucrats, responsible for moving some money around in the budgets but generally bound by whatever parliament and government puts into laws and bylaws.
The performance of the local politicians of course matters, but less than I think it should in a viable local democracy. The campaign in the press is all about the national party leaders with little attention paid to local issues and candidates.
The election finished just 40 minutes ago, and in Norway we have a ban on publishing exit polls, which all tend to be national and thus just give an indication of who is doing well and not so well locally.
| Party |
NRK exit poll |
TV2 exit poll |
| Labour (Ap) * |
26.4 (-1.2) |
29.6 (+2.1) |
| Socialist left (SV) * |
7.7 (-4.6) |
6.9 (-5.5) |
| Centre Party (Sp) * |
8.9 (+0.9) |
8.7 (+0.8) |
| Christian Democrats (Krf) |
6.4 (0) |
6.3 (-0.1) |
| Liberals (V) |
5.6 (+1.8) |
5.4 (+1.6) |
| Conservatives (H) |
20.6 (+2.4) |
18.8 (+0.7) |
| Progress Party (Frp) |
17.0 (+0.6) |
17.2 (+0.8) |
| Communist Party (RV) |
1.7 (+0.2) |
2.3 (+0.7) |
The exit poll results (percentages) are compared to the previous local election four years ago.
The parties marked with a (*) are part of the ruling "red-green" coalition government. The voters are reasonably happy with Labour, which remains the biggest party, but absolutely demolishes the Socialist Left. The other loser is still the Christian Democrats, who suffers from a total lack of direction, leadership charisma and a very post-Christian population. The Progress party appears to have done a so-so election. For some reason, more people always say they will vote for the populist rightist party than actually turns up on election day. They should be used to that by now.
The Conservatives had a rough election campaign, where the Oslo mayor had to withdraw after having to admit a secret bank account in Switzerland. Yet, the NRK exit poll at least has proclaimed it the election's big winner (TV2's numbers are surprisingly different). That may well be the case. I voted Conservative this year (again). I think the centre-right coalition has done a good job here in Bergen, and that is what counts for me. Another winner would be the Liberal party (V), which generally participates in non-socialist coalitions, election result permitting.
So how will this translate into the local elections this is all about? That is not entirely clear from the polls. The story in the press is that the centre-right coalitions ruling Oslo and Bergen appears to have pulled through, but this may change during the night when the actual polls are counted. The Conservatives did very badly with those who voted early here in Bergen.
Update: The non-socialist coalition won the election also here in Bergen. Labour gains were more than offset by the disastrous election for the Socialist Left.
9:20:07 PM 
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