(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Just over a year before the next parliamentary election, the Progress Party is already in the process of beating the election campaign strategy. – I would strongly recommend the party to make immigration, linked to crime, the most important issue in the election campaign next year, Jensen says to Verdens Gang.
Siv Jensen's recommendation is not least related to a poll the party itself has conducted, which shows that the Norwegian people's sympathy for Frp's immigration policy has increased over the last four years. In 2000, 42 percent of voters said immigration policy was what they liked least by Frp. Today, that figure has dropped to 27 percent. For one in five voters, immigration policy is what they like best about Siv Jensen's party.
The FRP members have not least noticed that the Conservatives 'and KrF's voters are now more positive – four years ago, about half of these parties' voters were negative to the FRP's policy in this area, today less than a third. Siv Jensen hopes that the link between immigration and crime will attract anxious Conservative and KrF voters to her party.
There is every reason to believe that both the debates related to terrorism and the Mulla Krekar case, the debates about forced marriage and similar issues internally in some immigrant communities, and the media's awareness of crime with foreign or immigrant perpetrators increases the skepticism of immigration and thus support for parties FRP.
At the same time, the party has not experienced any sharp rise in the polls – after the violent support around 30 percent in the autumn of 2002, the party has stabilized around 20 percent, ie just as many who believe immigration policy is the best at Frp. During this period, the FRP's public action on immigration issues – in a very broad sense – has been characterized by the party regularly having a lower and more sober profile than before, while there have been individual proposals from both party leader Carl I. Hagen and immigration policy spokesman Per Sandberg who has competed with Vidar Kleppe and Øystein Hedstrøm in extremity and stupidity.
But with the high support Frp already has, it doesn't seem that the most extreme games are giving the party any particular boost with voters. The explanation should be up today: When Frp joins fewer than those who like the party's immigration policy, the focus on immigrants may increase support for the party. But now the FRP has taken out all its anti-immigrant potential. Then it helps little to drive on more keel.
We believe the FRP will experience that the focus on immigration and crime will have little effect in next year's election campaign. We believe that fewer people now view the FRP's immigration policy negatively simply because the party itself has focused on other areas. But if the FRP follows Siv Jensen's recommendation, we feel confident that the skepticism of the party's policy will quickly reach old heights.
