Posted on 04/07/2006 3:35:12 AM PDT by tomjohn77
Voter support for Norway's Conservative Party (Høyre) has plunged to a new historically low level. While the party's former leader urged members to rally around its current leadership, other top party players were calling for heads to roll. Stein Erik Hagen says he's leaving Høyre after 35 years, and withdrawing financial support.
Høyre leader Erna Solberg (right) seems to quickly be losing ground to Siv Jensen (left), the popular leader of the Progress Party. There's a lot of rumbling going on around Høyre, which once led Norway's government with 32 percent of the vote. But that was 25 years ago, and while the Conservatives left a lasting mark on Norwegian society through various liberalization moves, the party has been stuck in a near-constant downward spiral ever since.
A new "party barometer" conducted by research firm Norsk Respons shows Høyre with just 9.9 percent of the vote, down four full points from a month ago. The results are based on 1,000 telephone interviews conducted April 3-5, during which 72 percent of those questioned disclosed which party they would vote for if a parliamentary election were to be held the next day.
The fact that Høyre fell below the 10 percent mark is especially tough symbolically. The party has only had such little support once before, in August 1997, when 9.7 percent of Norwegians questioned said they'd vote for Høyre.
Høyre's current loss seems to be the further right Progress Party's gain. The Progress Party Fremskrittspartiet, Frp) won 31.9 percent of the vote, even more than Labour's 31.4 percent, and thus ranks once again as Norway's largest political party at present.
Høyre's decline isn't necessarily an indication, therefore, that Norwegian voters are leaning more to the left than the right. The Progress Party's gain of 3.1 points rules that out.
Ups and downs If anything, political sentiments on the whole appear fairly steady. Labour, which leads the current three-party left-center coalition government, lost 2.1 points to land at 31.4 percent, offsetting a 1.6 gain by its government partner the Socialist Left (o 8.5 percent) and a 0.9 percent gain by its other partner, Center Party, to 5.5 percent.
There's little doubt that both voters and many members of Høyre are simply unhappy with the party itself. Stein Erik Hagen, for example, one of Norway's wealthiest businessmen and a 35-year member of Høyre, told newspaper VG on Friday that he's leaving the party in protest and withdrawing his sizeable financial support for Høyre as well.
Hagen said he no longer can support Høyre's political platform, and was furious that Høyre didn't make moves to amend or abolish Norway's controversial tax on individual net worth or prevent property owners from being forced to sell their land to long-term leasehold tenants. Hagen said he wants to see a change in leadership, to usher in a new, more modern brand of politics.
He's not alone. Local party leaders in western Norway, for example, have also called for the resignation of party leader Erna Solberg. Former leader Jan Petersen, however, urged Høyre members to support Solberg and work together to restore voter confidence.
The winds of change. This might lead to a totally different environment in Norwegian politics and will influence the scandinavian welfare model.
From your keyboard to God's ears.
Interesting... Norway's conservatives are abandoning a weak party to one that listens to them.
Thankfully, we are closer than ever to winning this year.
Have you signed up yet?
http://www.maktskifte06.se/?id=7
Here is wikipedia's summary of the party:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fremskrittspartiet
Yes I have voted for that party in every election. Finally it looks like they can get into power.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.