A Change in Government Would Not Change Norways' Policy Towards Russia

Recent parliamentary elections in Norway have resulted in the victory of a Conservative-led coalition and are likely to bring about a change in government. Anders Kjellevold, political advisor for the Labour Party in the Oslo City Council, shared his opinion on how the election results will affect the ruling Red-Green coalition and what the new governments’ policy towards Russia would be.

Recent parliamentary elections in Norway have resulted in the victory of a Conservative-led coalition and are likely to bring about a change in government. Anders Kjellevold, political advisor for the Labour Party in the Oslo City Council, shared his opinion on how the election results will affect the ruling Red-Green coalition and what the new governments’ policy towards Russia would be.

Mr. Kjellevold, how would you comment on the election results and how would you assess the performance of the Labour party?

The results were not really surprising, as they reflect what the polls have been showing for a long time. In the end, it turned out that the opposition, which constitutes the centre-right parties, gained quite a large majority, while the sitting red-green Coalition, which during the two last elections had a majority, only gained 40,4 per cent of the vote. The results from the government perspective were quite disappointing, although expected. From a Labour party point of view, the results were not great, but, at the same time, not as poor as many would have feared. Labour party is still the biggest party, as it gained over 30% of the vote. If you compare, for instance, the result of this election to the result in 2005 when the red-green coalition entered office, support for Labour is down less than 2%, which is not bad after governing for eight years.

Do you think the red-green Coalition is likely to remain in its present form in the opposition?

Well, it is certain that the coalition will step down from office due to the election results. Will the red-green parties continue to cooperate in opposition? It is difficult to tell, because only a few days have passed. I do not think that the parties have decided what is going to happen after the election. At the very least, before the election, all of the three parties in the red-green Coalition refused to talk about a plan B. So we have not come to the point where we are publicly discussing what we will do in the case of a lost election. However, if I was to give my opinion, I would be surprised if the Coalition continues in its current form, because originally it was based on a compromise to form a government together. Now that the incentive to form a government is gone, we are likely to see some changes. Therefore co-operation is unlikely to remain as close as it has been until now.

Photo: Anders Kjellevold

The three parties certainly know each other quite well, and have been able to co-operate, but the election results will of course have some implications on how the parties shape policy in the future. The two smaller parties, which are the Socialist Left and the agrarian party, which is called Centre Party, will have to assess if remaining within the Coalition is good for them, because both of them lost a lot of votes. They may have to take care of their own electorates, and the Labour party, even though it is still the biggest party, will have to come up with a strategy on how to win the next election. So a simple answer to your question is that the coalition probably will not remain in its present form, although some form of co-operation will continue, and, of course, all of these parties will go into opposition together. And naturally, being in opposition, they are bound to front some policies together against the new government.

What were the most important issues on the agenda of the past electoral campaign, and what was the tactics of the Conservatives?

The Conservatives were hugely successful, They increased their share of the votes by almost 10 per cent , and as such they are the clear winners of the election. They have gained this victory by significantly changing their tactics from previous elections. Whereas previously they talked a lot about large economic reforms, this time the focus was not so much on dramatic changes, but rather on improving current policies. In other words, the Conservatives offered to just fine-tune the system, because most people in Norway are quite content about how the country is developing. Conservatives know that, so instead of advocating big system changes, they said that they were going to bring some new ideas into government, and to come up with some new solutions. Put bluntly, their position essentially was: “We are not going to change anything big, we are just going to do things better, you know”.

And why, in your opinion, did the government lose support despite good economic progress?

It is a bit complicated. I think the main issue is that first of all the Labour party has been ruling for eight years, and that results in some public fatigue in the government, meaning that people have seen the same people in power for a long time. They might been tired of these politicians, and might think that somebody else should have a try. This is often the case with specific issues that the current government has not been able to solve. Another reason may be that Norway has actually been doing very well for a long time, even before this government, and when things go well for a very long period of time people may feel that a change of government won't detract this progress.

This was reflected in the strategy of the Conservatives, because they have always been saying that they were not going to change anything big. They were saying that they were going to bring is some new ideas, some better solutions, but they were not going to change anything at the core of Norwegian policies, just going to do a little bit of innovation. And it seems like the voters have bought into this and accepted this argument. Possibly the Labour government will have to take some responsibility in this case, because it has failed to show voters that Labour can also come up with some new big ideas, and take their policies to a new level.

Do you think that this happened because there is a consensus in Norwegian society about social policy and the welfare state in the a sense that it has to be kept?

I do believe so. Because in previous elections, if anybody tried to threaten the basic structure of the system, they would never win an election. The Conservatives also know this, they cannot criticize the welfare state or the large degree of public spending, and they are not trying to do so. What they were saying was: “OK, the government has not done a good enough job with hospitals, we are going to fix that. The current taxation system is not totally fair, we are going to fix that. The schools are not going as well as they should be, we're going to fix that too”. Smaller things like that. They offer different policies, but within the same general frame.

In its campaign, The Labour party has been trying to warn that the Conservatives are likely to bring the right-wing Progress party into government with them, and that this will be bad for the system, but voters did not seem to believe it.

How do you think the election results will affect Russian-Norwegian relations?

Traditionally, the Conservatives and Labour have had a high degree of consensus when it came to the foreign policy. As these are the two biggest parties, they have to relate to foreign policy in a more responsible manner than other smaller parties, because they are likely to be in power at some point. Therefore, I would be very surprised if the new government would seek to change policy towards Russia. I very much think that the new government, led by Conservatives, will more or less continue down the same path as the Labour party did with regards to Russia. Especially since Conservatives are likely to get a foreign minister. In other words, there is likely to be a high degree of continuity.

In your opinion, are Norway and Russia likely to enhance cooperation in Arctic under new government?

In the last few years, Arctic co-operation between Norway and Russia has been moving in a positive direction. Most notably, the 2010 agreement on the maritime demarcation lines between Norway and Russia was a big breakthrough. And since then, policies have been stable I think the climate for cooperation between Norway and Russia at this time is fairly good. So I will be very surprised if the Conservatives will try to jeopardise this by deviating from that path. The current Labour government has been trying to strengthen cooperation and been successful at that for a long time, in good partnership with the Russian government and I believe that the Conservative-led government will try to continue that development.

Interviewer: Nikolay Markotkin, RIAC program coordinator

Note: Mr. Kjellevold was speaking on his own behalf. Opinions shared in this article should not be understood as the official line of the Labour party.