(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
This year's parliamentary elections were not like other parliamentary elections.
The electoral thriller on Monday night was even more dramatic than the final number of representatives in the Stortingen testify.
The Progressive Party and the bourgeois government parties, on a national basis, actually got about 21.700 more votes than the new Labor parties, the Labor Party, the SV and the Center Party. Given that over 2,6 million votes were cast, that indicates a bourgeois overweight of just under eight per thousand.
Now, the electoral system is now in Norway so that not all votes count equally: The districts have been awarded several seats in the Storting to compensate for, among other things, the physical distance to power in the metropolitan area. Therefore, the bourgeois ended up with 82 parliamentary politicians against the 87 representatives of the red-green.
This year's Norwegian parliamentary elections have two such parallels to the US presidential election in the year 2000: First, in the case of the extremely smooth election result between the right and left sides. And secondly, that the electoral system means that government power is determined by the mandate calculation, not by the pure voting numbers.
There are many reasons why the electoral system in Norway is as it is. And just as many reasons why the scheme should continue. At a time when the emigration from the districts is a real danger to the livelihoods of many communities, the problem is rarely that the perspectives from central areas cannot influence both the word exchange and the policy here in the country.
In addition, the election campaign has in all years been designed precisely with this electoral system in mind. Outgoing Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik himself pointed this out indirectly in his summary on Tuesday morning, when he pointed out that the bourgeois predominance in pure votes "is not important" in the assessment of political power in Norway. The mandate scheme ensures, if nothing else, that politicians move outside the shopping centers in Eastern Norway.
The new red-green government has thus gained its political power precisely thanks to the support of the districts. It will unnatural and contrary to the political mandate if this government does not follow up by achieving concrete results within the district effort.
The historically new government collaboration between the Labor Party, the Socialist Left Party and the Center Party offers both new challenges and new opportunities. Time will tell how a dedicated opposition party like SV can make it a position party with responsibility and power.
Also for the media and Ny Tid, the impending government triangle will constitute a new situation. Orientering, Ny Tids' predecessor, became from the end of the 1950s the birth helper for what was to become SF, later SV.
For the past seven years, however, Ny Tid has been politically independent, like most other Norwegian newspapers. The critical tradition will be upheld. Certain things cannot be changed by election thrillers.
DH
