(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
14. September 2009 there is again parliamentary elections in Norway. So on Sunday this weekend, there is another year left for voters to give their first verdict on the first government where the Labor Party has entered into a coalition. And it will also be the first litmus test on how SV is judged after participating in its first government after the founding of SF in 1961.
All this well to note if the red-green Ap-SV-Sp government stays together for so long, until the next election. Then SV leader and finance minister Kristin Halvorsen 3. September took a dissent on eight of the thirteen of Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg's points for tightening in asylum policy, it might seem like a matter of time before the red-green cooperation project was about to be stranded.
In such an important issue, which concerns fundamental human rights, the core of the Soria Moria Declaration and the UN High Commissioner's recommendations, a government should stand together, not present three different points of view – as will now be the case with last weekend's Center Party decision.
But such a disagreement over an open microphone probably quickly seems more dramatic than it is in realpolitik terms. The disagreement can be interpreted as being a certain game for the gallery – at least it was probably the most important thing for both the Labor Party and the Socialist People's Party to clarify their positions to their core voters – and thus win back lost supporters.
Stoltenberg clearly wants to play on FRP's half of the field, although he probably risks offending many as well – at least in that those who want such a less humane policy prefer the original, and thus Jensen supports Jens instead. Halvorsen and SV probably have the most to gain from last week's special political session, although for some it will be too little, too late.
Cleaner air
In this week's edition of Ny Tid, election researcher Frank Aarebrot states that SV's disagreement can be used by the FRP and in an anti-immigration direction, by moving towards individual treatment, well notice when the UN High Commissioner for Refugees says otherwise. I guess so. The FRP will probably not use SV arguments if they are allowed to take power in Norway next year.
More importantly, the disagreement between Halvorsen and Stoltenberg may have seemed like a necessary vent. The air seems cleaner now. Maybe it will be easier to get a good collaboration in the future. Possibly an open and real political quarrel may have cleared the air for much of the unspoken and inflamed that has been under the cooperation
last three years.
Ever since the left wing in SV's protests against its own government in the autumn of 2005, against NATO cooperation in Afghanistan, there has been a unrest that does not seem to want to go away. It probably will not in the future either. Both the transport plan, climate policy, the purchase of fighter jets and the European missile shield could cause SV major problems in the future. The Labor Party and Stoltenberg will probably not show up from any softer side now towards the election.
The missile shield in particular, which the United States and NATO are now pushing forward, is of historical interest. It was precisely the Labor Party's national meeting decision on the deployment of nuclear weapons in Norway in 1961 that caused a faction to break out of the Labor Party and then form the Socialist People's Party. With today's growing tension between Russia and the United States, with Norway as a pendant through NATO, it may again be rockets and nuclear weapons that become a crucial issue for SV. But now it is noticeable in position, not in opposition as in 1961. The challenges and tensions of history are about to return.