The questions alone should send shock waves through Youngstorget and Folkets Hus. During a long election night, it became clear that Norway has acquired many more shades of blue. The warning from the blue-blue school election struck. It was expected that the Conservative Party would do well. For one year, they have been Norway’s supremely largest party in the surveys. The surprise lies in the width. Høyre grows in everything from big cities to the outermost bare island. At the same time, both FRP and Venstre make good choices. In addition, the prophecy of KrF’s imminent death has proved to be untrue. This time either. Support throughout the country Satisfaction would hardly have been as great if the Conservative Party took everything, as it has appeared in the surveys. It gives both self-confidence and can build unity on the bourgeois side of Norwegian politics. It was not written in the stars at all after the election defeat in 2021. Then the analysis was that the bourgeois lay with a broken back, almost erased from parts of the country. It is a strength for the bourgeois side that all four parties made a good choice. Few predicted the election defeat in 2021. Erna Solberg (H) and Sylvi Listhaug (Frp) still have a job to do with building relationships on the right. Photo: Gry Blekastad Almås / news An unfortunate and unpopular government It is difficult to explain the election result without squinting at the government’s problems. The stamp as historically unpopular is due both to the economic crises the country is in, but also to how they themselves have handled the crises. Many voters simply have little faith in the government’s ability to govern. That it has awakened a kind of longing for Erna Solberg’s leadership seems obvious. According to the recent election survey “Politics in troubled times”, the voters, regardless of party colour, were very satisfied with Solberg’s handling of the corona pandemic. Already shortly after the election victory, according to the election researchers, support and “limited enthusiasm” for the new Støre government was seen to fail. The government has had bad luck, but doesn’t get much credit for its crisis management either. But is that enough to explain the voter migrations at the election? Photo: Åge Algerøy / news A sensational troop transfer But that alone hardly explains the fact that the election has moved 10 percent of voters across the line from red-green to the bourgeois side. It is a startling voter turnout. As a rule, voters move between parties that are close to each other. When Ap has struggled in the past, voters have tended to go to parties on the left, especially SV. It didn’t happen now. Does it mean that the electorate has become more right-wing? Not necessarily. Left about… When the left won a convincing election victory in 2021, it was interpreted as a desire for more radical politics. With LO as a cheerleader, the government has taken a clear step to the left, and among other things tightened the possibilities for hiring labor and the use of private actors in welfare. In addition, they have opened up the state coffers for a number of cheaper services and welfare benefits, such as free after-school care, cheaper kindergartens, free ferries and increased social assistance and child benefit. The government has also tightened the wealth tax, introduced additional employer’s tax for high earners and adopted a salmon tax, which has received, to put it mildly, a mixed reception along the coast. That the government’s tax and business policy has helped the right to win the coast seems quite obvious. It also sparked a lot of debate that the government prioritized “ordinary people” and defined this as people who earned less than NOK 750,000. Although they have backtracked on this message, the impression left behind has been harder to erase. If there really was a call for more left-wing politics, these should be winning cases for the government. But the previously mentioned election survey showed that voters did not move to the left in their view of public or private in the 2021 election. They stood still. This is supported by a poll in VG which shows that a significant majority believe that private companies should also be allowed to run nursing homes. The left has claimed, and still believes it has figures, that there is little popular support for private actors in welfare. But it is not only the government that has taken a step to the left. The party Høyre has also done that, writes Tone Sofie Aglen. Photo: Øystein Otterdal / news Erna Solberg has made room tight for the Labor Party But it is not only the government that has taken a step to the left. The Right Party has also done that. They have erased the sharpest right-wing politics, and moderated everything about tax cuts and extensive competition. The new context has been the need for diversity in the services and to use “all good forces”. The right’s top candidates in the big cities have profiled themselves as light blue and centrist-oriented. Expanding has been a deliberate strategy for Erna Solberg’s Right. In this election, it also seems to have been a successful strategy. The majority of voters appear to be pragmatic and centrist. If the Conservative Party has become “the new centre”, it should send shock waves into the Labor Party. The fear is that the Conservative Party will not only take from Ap the position as Norway’s largest party, but also as the new people’s party. Expanding has been a deliberate strategy for Erna Solberg’s Right, writes Tone Sofie Aglen. Photo: news But have we overlooked a change in value? It hit like a bomb that the Conservative Party and FRP made an almost clean slate during the school election. Neither MDG, Ap nor Rødt had much to smile about. Adults seemed shocked that the young people no longer turned out to be Greta Thunberg Iranians who voted red, green and radical. Is there a new generation that only thinks about themselves and cheap snuff, many people asked. Today’s young people obviously do not have the values that many have thought. They may be concerned about climate, but do not automatically think that the MDGs have the best solutions. The question is whether young people have become more conservative, as the leaders of the Conservative and FRP youth parties claim. So far we have more questions than answers. Pressure cooker effects An equally relevant question is whether the left has made the space for what one can think and say unnecessarily narrow. Today, many express that one has to balance quite straight on the narrow path in order not to be labeled a racist, transphobe or climate denier, to name a few. This means that many people are reluctant to speak their mind on combustible issues. It may be a nerve the right has hit. Not least this applies to men. A quick trip to our neighboring country Sweden can serve as an example. There they have had a change of words which has been characterized by considerable political correctness. For many years there has been a fear of talking about challenges related to integration and crime. In parallel, the right-wing populist party Sweden Democrats has grown and grown, until after last year’s election they became the second largest party and have considerable influence in Swedish politics. The controversial party did particularly well among the young. The battle for the boys Outgoing city councilor in Oslo, Raymond Johansen (Ap) is among those who believe that the left is pushing young men away by being too “woke”. In an interview in the newspaper Klassekampen, he says that “there is a great distance between the message of the left and what the guys experience as their ideals and challenges in life”. He meets many people who think the left is too morally complacent. Johansen believes they cannot afford to let the right win the battle for the boys’ votes. This autumn’s election shows that there is far more than boys’ votes at stake for the Labor Party.
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Is the Conservative Party the new centre? – Speech
