Norway held local elections all over the country yesterday, less than two months after the terror attacks in Oslo and at Utøya.
The anti-immigrant Progress Party once favoured by right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik has lost a third of its vote in local elections in Norway.
With nearly all votes counted, the opposition Conservatives had the biggest gains, taking 28% compared to 19% in 2007.
The governing Labour Party - targeted by Mr Breivik - made smaller gains.
It increased its vote share by two points, to reach nearly 32%.
However, it saw its coalition ally the Socialist Left Party (SV) drop from 6% to 4%, compared to the 2007 local election results.
BBC
I haven´t written so much about the aftermath and cultural and political effects of the attack as I once planned (much because it´s hard for me to formulate things in English).
I will try to make some diaries about it later, as there are many things to write about. In some ways 7/22 was a reversal of 9/11; an anti-jihadist attacking those he thought faciliated Muslim immigration and culture. And thus the political reaction would naturally also be very different.
The Progress Party has definitely struggled. They already had some problems before 7/22, but it really became difficult for them after that date. They haven´t managed to adjust to the new situation. The party normally thrives on anti-immigrations feelings, but also on more general anti-establishment feelings. But after a terror attack, people tend to support their authorities, and aren´t in a mood for very negative campaigns.
In Oslo their former party leader, Carl I Hagen, was their mayoral candidate (mostly a ceremonial position). That became a total catastrophe. He made some very offensive comments in the beginning of the campaign (claming that almost all terrorists are Muslims, and complaining that the police used too much resources on invesetigation the Oslo/Utøya attacks). Very remarkable to see him that out of touch with the popular sentiment, as he normally used to understand the popular sentiment so extremely well. (A true populistic politician). The party only got 7% of the votes in Oslo. This is significant because Oslo is the immigrant metropole in Norway (almost 30% are of recent immigrant background, of which 20% are of Non-Western origin). Oslo used to be one of their best area, now their best areas are mainly areas with relatively few immigrants.
Another aspect of the election: The left continues to be exremely weak in the larger towns/cities, and are stronger in smaller towns and rural areas. I believe the non-socialist party will rule 20 of the 22 biggest towns in Norway. This is of course a different trend from the US and many other European countries where rural=right and educated urban people often are more leftleaning.
Part of the reason is that the longterm trend in Norway has been that the Labour Party is losing support. They used to have over 40% of the votes in many elections. To form a majority on the National level, they now need support not only from the Socialist Left Party, but also from the Agrarian Centre Party. In big towns however they hardly get any help from the Agrarian party which is mostly a rural party. But even the Labor party itself is stronger in rural/medium populated areas than in the most urban areas. Compared to the average voter, the Labor voter tend to be less educated, have less income, more often be public employees and live more remotely. (It´s actually much of the same demographic the Progess Party has, exept for the public employees). They also have much support from minority groups in the cities, but like in the US, turn-outs among minorities tend to lower than among the majority and their support doesn´t make up for other negative factors. The Conservative Party in Norway (which is a very decent party) has more support among the young, educated and urban.
A disappointing factor in the election was the general low turn-out, only 62.5%, just 1 percentage point more than the last local election. It was expected that the recent terror attack would have encouraged people to vote at a larger rate.
In related news, Denmark has a National election coming up soon. There is a great chance that the left will take over the government after a long time of Conservative rule. The rightleaning government in Denmark has enforced extremely tough anti-immigration legislations. There are signs that people in Denmark are now somewhat tired of the immigration debate and want a more relaxed attitudes, allthough many of the current immigration restrictions will probably be kept also with a new government.