Posted on 09/02/2005 6:07:53 AM PDT by franksolich
The latest round of opinion polls hints that the national elections on Sep. 12 will contain considerable excitement in terms of producing a majority government.
The red-green coalition of the Labor (Ap), Socialist Left (SV) and Center (Sp) parties remain vastly more popular than the tripartite center-right governing alliance, but the prospects of a clear left-leaning parliamentary majority are not so clear.
In the latest poll by AC Nielsen for the Newspapers' News Agency (ANB), SV fell back fully three percent points from June measurements, to 12.8 percent, just marginally better than their 2001 showing. In compensation, Labor advanced 1.2 percent points to 30.6 percent, which is where they seem to be stabilizing on various surveys.
The red-green coalition would win 88 parliamentary seats according to the latest Nielsen poll, just three more than needed for a majority.
The Progress Party (Fr.P) stumbled, losing 1.9 percent points, while all of the governing coalition partners - the Conservative (H), Christian Democrat (Kr.F) and Liberal (V) parties, advanced.
Election researcher Bernt Aardal expects the closing days of the campaign to be decisive.
"The last week will be completely decisive. The parties that manage to call out their reserves have a lot to win," said Aardal, who pointed out that in 2001 as many as 300,000 voters waited until election day to decide which party they would support.
The Liberal Party needs to reach 4 percent support to win extra parliamentary seats, and is at 3.9 in both the Nielsen and a new Sentio poll for newspaper Nationen.
The Sentio measures the red-green support at 87 seats, even closer than the Nielsen.
The latest Opinion poll for Aftenposten also gives the red-green alliance 87 seats, but shows a marked drop in Labor support, though they still poll 29.9 percent.
Opinion consultant Tonje Haugberg believed that the major swings in the latest poll - drops for Labor and Progress Party are natural corrections to extreme measurements in the previous survey, but also credited changes in public mood as a contributing factor.
The Progress and Conservative parties are about the same size on the latest Opinion poll, and one interesting aspect of the coming election is to see which party will emerge as the largest non-socialist option.
That could be a rather exciting election in Norway, what with the numbers so close.
Remember my predictions about the September elections that I stated last April; it surely tends that way now.
I had of course predicted that the left would start to argue among themselves--as the left traditionally does, splintering into factions, none with any control.
I had also predicted such internecine infighting might come AFTER the elections, making these parties, if in fact elected ten days hence, a rather short-lived government.
I have come to love Norway from extensive service there, but have always found it sad to see that beautiful country and its good people mired in stifling socialism. So it is refreshing to hear that a growing number of Norwegians are beginning to question their socialist mindset. If not for the Kingdom's fairly recent wealth from North Sea oil, Norwegian socialism would have already collapsed...
Then why is Sweden, where government spending accounts for ten percent more of GDP than in Norway, still holding together? And how come Denmark, with similar policies, hasn't collapsed?
People need to get away from the idea that the Scandinavian countries represent the ideals of the American left. Sweden, the most socialist country in Scandinavia, has fully voucherised education. I dear say dummies wouldn't approve.
Oh, and by the way, the Norwegian government doesn't spend oil money, only a fraction of the capital income generated by the oil fund, where oil revenue is invested.
Yup. Sweden has also abolished inheritance taxation. In Finland, most cities have outsourced road maintenance, local utility companies are private etc. The number of state employees has fallen drastically in the last 10 years. Of course, they still have outrageous income taxation but the government more and more buys public services from open market service providers.
Thats how it works in Norway too. The state buys service from private companies
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