Red-green alliance forges ahead
Aftenposten Norway
September 12, 2005
As Monday night drew to a close and 89.5 percent of the vote was counted in Norway's national election, the Labor-led left-center coalition was moving towards a parliamentary majority and a shift in government.
The prognosis at 11:30 p.m. pointed to an 88-81 majority for the Labor-Socialist Left-Center alliance, comfortably over the 85 seats needed for a majority.
Labor (Ap) and the Progress Party (Fr.P) were the night's big winners, with the former regaining their position as the nation's dominant party and the Fr.P rising to become the leading right-wing party.
The Conservatives and Christian Democrats, the two major parties in the governing center-right coalition, were the election losers. The Conservatives stand to lose about a third of their seats, and the Christian Democrats half. Their partners, the Liberal Party, could celebrate, with projections indicating that they would go from two parliamentary seats to ten.
Election day polls painted the possibility of fringe parties the Red Electoral Alliance or Coastal Party holding crucial power in the case of a deadlock between the two blocs, but now it appears that neither party will even win a seat in the
Storting, Norway's parliament.
The election turn-out, measured at 11:15 p.m., was 75 percent. The 2001 election saw a turn-out of 75.5 percent, compared to 78.3 percent in 1997.
Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik, asked how his government could fall to a majority alternative after Norway had been named the best country in the world to live in by the United Nations' human development index for the fifth consecutive year, said this was an excellent question which he could not answer.
After midnight Bondevik said that if the result projections proved accurate he would notify King Harald on Tuesday morning that the current government would tender its resignation and step down after presenting the national budget for 2006 in about four weeks time.
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