Norway has just elected a new Prime Minister. Erna Solberg, the convivial centre-right leader that has governed the country for eight years, is now on her way out. Her coalition — which included the populist Progress party, the liberals and the Christian democrats — took a heavy beating last night, losing almost ten percentage points since the 2017 election. It clearly didn’t help that Solberg is still popular around the country and is reckoned to have managed the pandemic well. Norwegian opinion has been moving to the left for quite some time. Now the voters have painted the country red.
Jonas Gahr Støre, the leader of the Labour party, will be the new Prime Minister. He’s a safe pair of hands. A former aide to Gro Harlem Brundtland, PM from 1981 to 1996, he was also foreign minister in the government of Jens Stoltenberg, the current Nato chief.
This election campaign has often felt like a debate between Jeremy Corbyn, Greta Thunberg and one of those funny hippies from Extinction Rebellion
But while his experience and cognitive qualities are roundly recognised, Gahr Støre doesn’t really go down well with voters outside the main metropolises.
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