Four more years for Barents Governors

The elections for Municipality and County council in Norway this Monday shows that the Norwegian Conservative party is the election winner. The Labour Party has approximately the same results as the last local election, while the left wing Socialist left party and right wing Progression party has lost most voters and seems to be this election’s losers.

However, for the three Barents counties, Nordland, Troms and Finnmark, the sitting Governors from the Labour Party will probably continue in office. The current county Governors from the Labour Party are Odd Eriksen in Nordland, Pia Svendsgaard in Troms and Runar Sjåstad in Finnmark.

The election for the national parliament is in 2013. Even though many people vote different in the regional elections than in the national elections, the regional elections still is a very good indicator of the current status in Norwegian politics. The Conservatives have had a rise in opinion polls over the last year and on Election Day the party ended up with 27.7 percent of the total votes, which is an increase with 9 percent from the 2007 election. The Labour party is still the largest party in Norway with 33.1 of the votes, but their normal coalition partner, the Socialist party, had a very bad election with only 4.3 percent of the total votes. Therefore the Conservatives, together with their coalition partners in the center and right wing, have gained political control over several of the larger cities and regions in Norway.

Northern Norway’s largest city, Tromsø, will most likely be ruled by Tromsø Conservative party’s candidate, Jens Johan Hjort. This will be the first Conservative Mayor in Tromsø in years. Also in Finnmarks largest town, Alta, there will be a change from Labour party to Conservatives, while the results in Nordlands largest town, Bodø are not ready yet. The conservatives have done a very good election also in Bodø and are threatening the Labour Party’s rule for the first time in years.