| Norway’s Labour Party leader Jonas Gahr Store casts his vote to the Norwegian parliamentary election in Oslo |
Norwegians voted on Monday on the second and final day of a parliamentary election that remains too close to call between Prime Minister Erna Solberg’s centre-right bloc and the centre-left opposition headed by the Labour Party.
Solberg’s Conservatives want to cut taxes in a bid to boost growth if they win a fresh mandate, while Labour leader Jonas Gahr Stoere seeks tax hikes to fund better public services such as education and healthcare.
The outcome could also impact Norway‘s oil industry, as either Solberg or Gahr Stoere is likely to depend on one or more small parties that seek to impose limits on exploration in Arctic waters off the northern coast.
Solberg, voting in the west coast city of Bergen, expressed cautious hopes of re-election. “The latest opinion polls show that it is within reach. But it’s very dependent on who’s managed to mobilise voters in the last days,” she said.
Adding to the suspense are the formulas used to allocate seats under Norway‘s system of proportional representation, which give a boost to parties that clear a 4 percent hurdle.
Two left-wing parties and two on the right – as well as the Greens, who have not said which prime minister they would favour – are all close to this threshold, opinion polls show.
“This can tip the scale one way or the other,” said Professor Toril Aalberg of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
For much of the year, Labour and its allies were ahead in the polls and favoured to win a clear victory, but support for the government has risen as the economy gradually recovered from a slump in the price of crude oil, Norway‘s top export.
Unemployment, which a year ago hit a 20-year high of 5 per cent, has since declined to 4.3 per cent, while consumer confidence is at a 10-year high.
Exit polls and forecasts based on early votes by about a quarter of the electorate will be made public on Monday at 1900 GMT, and most other ballots will be counted in the following hours. In the case of an exceptionally tight race the wait could last until late Tuesday.