NEWS ANALYSIS: Norway's Upcoming Election Remains Wide Open

With a changing balance of power among different political parties, the outcome of Norway's general election next week remains wide open.

The ruling Labor Party appears headed for the worst election result since the 1920s. In the opinion polls published Thursday, it scored 21.1 percent, falling behind its major rival, the Conservatives, which obtained 21.8 percent.

In the last parliamentary elections in 1997, the Labor Party won 35 percent of the vote, 20 percentage points over the far- right Progress Party which ranked second in the election. Parliamentary elections are held once every four years in Norway.

The Labor Party suffered a heavy blow in the 1999 local elections when it got only 28.2 percent of the vote.

In February last year, the three-party moderate coalition consisting of the Christian Democratic Party, the Center Party and the Liberal Party, stepped down after it failed to win support in parliament for delaying natural gas power station construction.

The resignation of the minority government gave the Labor Party a chance to stage a comeback with a support rate of 38 percent, unfolding a promising prospect for the coming election.

But with other parties' election campaigns launched this summer, support for the Labor Party plummeted to 22 percent in June and around 25 percent after that.

The party's decline has many reasons, one of which is the changing social structure in the Nordic country.

In the last 20 years, Norway's surging oil wealth and development of the knowledge-based economy have led to an enlargement of the middle class, while the people of lower pay, which the Labor party is based upon, become less and thus the influence of labor unions is diminishing in the country.

Without no any strategic adjustments taken accordingly, the Labor government failed to carry out any effective reforms or improvement and made both the left and the right disappointed.

Although the Labor Party advocates improving the social welfare system in the elections, it has put forward no concrete measures and thus has little appeal to the voters.

The rejuvenation of the main opposition Conservatives constitutes a sharp contrast to Labor's downturn. In the last election, the Conservatives got only 14.3 percent of the vote but it gathered strength dramatically in recent months and once registered a support rate of 34 percent.

Analysts from Oslo attribute this change to the party's campaign promises -- tax cuts and increase of investment in education, promises that pleased the middle class people and the families with children.

It is also noted that a large number of Norwegians are still undecided over the election. A latest opinion poll showed that some 700,000 voters, who account for about 20 percent of the total electorate, are uncertain which party to vote.

For both the Labor Party and the Conservatives, to win over the undecided voters would be decisive in the election Monday.

Two things are certain, however. Even if the Labor Party manages to maintain the position of Norway's largest party, it would not be able to keep the number of seats in parliament as it has today. If all parties end up small, it would be hard for any one to form a stable ruling coalition.






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