The center party falls in recent opinion polls in Nordland – news Nordland

In the survey carried out by InFact on behalf of news and Amedia, 11.9 per cent answered that they would vote for the Center Party if there were municipal elections tomorrow. It is a decrease of 13.4 percentage points compared to the election in 2019. A sharp decline, in other words. – People forget too easily. And then people are a bit navel-gazing. Now it’s petrol and electricity prices that apply, and then you forget everything else. That’s what mayor Berit Hundåla says in the Helgeland municipality of Vefsn. She is obviously not happy with the feedback from the voters. Political earthquake Nordland was the county where all the arrows pointed upwards for the Center Party. In the 2019 election, one in four Northerners voted for the party. A startlingly high number – and it was only margins that prevented them from beating the Labor Party. In that case, it would be something close to a sensation. The success was long referred to as a political earthquake. After the election, the Center Party had 20 mayors in Nordland. – We had an extremely good election campaign three years ago, concludes Mayor Hundåla. Vefsn mayor Berit Hundåla Photo: Eva Berget / news According to her, the 2019 election was a protest election against centralization under the auspices of the “blue-blue” government. And no one was more clearly in opposition than the Center Party. But what went wrong after that? After all, the Center Party has kept several of its election promises in Nordland. They have saved the University College in Nesna. They have – at least almost – introduced free ferry tickets. In addition, electricity has been virtually free for long periods in the north. Nothing to object to there either. What are the voters dissatisfied with? Has created great expectations – The Center Party created expectations that were almost impossible to fulfill. Even if they deliver on individual cases, an impression has taken hold that ordinary people are worse off. This is what political commentator on news, Tone Sofie Aglen, says, and continues: – The governing parties have not got a handle on their crisis communication, and it will be a test when they will soon present a state budget in which very little money has been announced for roads, construction and other good purposes. – The Center Party’s strong progress in Northern Norway was long referred to as a political earthquake. Now we see that the Center Party is plummeting, but it is the right wing that is picking up almost all of their voters. It makes next year’s local elections more exciting, and Sp may risk losing many mayors and positions of power, says political commentator at news, Tone Sofie Aglen. Photo: news Erna Solberg also has some suggestions to explain the Center Party’s decline. – I hear a number of voters say to me that they regret voting for the Center Party – because the politics they are pursuing has nothing to do with today’s challenges. The former prime minister continues: – It is about the fact that what they said before the election does not agree with what they do when they come into government. When they actually implement the policies they said they would do, people perceive it as irrelevant. There is war in Europe, and then the dissolution of county councils is not the most important thing. Solberg also gives a little advice. – I think SP needs to think through the fact that they created some expectations to stop a development that they have no policy to stop. In other words, what is the change in the population pattern in Norway. They are probably met with the fact that they were high and dark in opposition to things they are unable to do anything about in position. Conservative Party leader Erna Solberg is happy about the increase in Nordland. Photo: Even Bjøringsøy Johnsen / news Høyre makes a pair For the Høyre, the survey is pleasant reading, says Solberg. While SP falls by 13 percentage points since the election, the Conservative Party and the Progressive Party rise by almost the same amount. The right alone rises by 8 percentage points to 24.1. Had that been the election result, it would have been almost a tangent to the best thing the Conservative Party has ever done in Nordland. In the 1972 election, the Conservative Party got 24.2. – It is nice to get this response in an area where the electricity discussion is not the same. It shows that it is perhaps a little more than just the challenge of electricity that makes people choose other parties, says Solberg. It takes time to turn the tide The Conservatives currently have only three mayors in Nordland. The Center Party has 20. Solberg acknowledges that it will be difficult to balance that difference. But she at least hopes for a doubling, and that the Conservative Party will perhaps win in the large cities of Bodø, Narvik and Mo i Rana. Berit Hundåla’s explanation naturally differs somewhat from that of the Conservative Party leader. – People don’t understand that it takes more than a year to turn things around. The previous government made such big changes that there is no “quick fix”. – I also think that the government has been extremely unlucky this year. A number of things have happened over which the government has no direct control – such as the Ukraine war and the power crisis. It would have been just as “funny” if it had been a different government. While the Center Party is retreating sharply, the Labor Party is holding its own. – The Labor Party has already lost a lot of ground in the north. They have, however, prioritized the districts and Northern Norway, many would think that this has happened at the expense of the big cities. Ap has many important profiles in Nordland, and that is often an advantage in local elections, says Tone Sofie Aglen. – It is good to see that people have confidence in our local politicians, and that they see that it means something to have an Ap mayor in their municipality, says AP deputy leader Bjørnar Skjæran. Bjørnar Skjæran believes the survey shows that voters have confidence in local politicians. Photo: INGEBORG GRINDHEIM SLINDE / news



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