Norway faces a prolonged period of political instability following an election which failed to give the ruling Labour Party a renewed mandate and was marked by the dramatic rise of the far-right Progress Party. With 15.3 per cent of the poll, it is now the country's second-largest party. Having promised to quit as Prime Minister if his party secured less than its 1993 36.9 per cent, Mr Thorbjorn Jagland achieved only 35.1 per cent and is expected to resign on October 13th.
He will probably be replaced by a precarious centrist coalition of the Christian People's Party (CPP), the Liberals and the Centre Party, with a combined share of only 28 per cent. Their leaders were in discussions yesterday.
Led by a Lutheran priest, Mr Kjell Magne Bondevik of the CPP, such a government could only hope to survive by charting a careful compromise course from vote to vote. "But I am quite good at slalom, I have long experience at that," Mr Bondevik said yesterday.
If, as expected, the coalition falls within months, Labour will find itself back in office again, engaged in the same slalom. Norway's constitution does not allow for a dissolution of the Storting (parliament) until the end of the full four-year term.
Mr Jagland, inheritor of the mantle but not the charisma of Ms Gro Harlem Brundtland, has cause to feel aggrieved at the voters. Labour has presided over a booming economy whose non-oil component has also thrived on a remarkable social compact between unions and employers. But the party appeared jaded and arrogant after 10 years in government.
The far-right Progress Party is led by the only inspirational figure of the election campaign, Mr Carl I. Hagen, a demagogue in the mould of Austria's Mr Jorg Haider. The party played down its anti-immigrant stance and its antagonism to the indigenous Sami people of the north, but few of their voters could have been under any illusion.
During the campaign Mr Hagen tapped a mood of discontent over waiting lists in hospitals and weaknesses in the care of the elderly, suggesting that Norway should spend its development aid (the largest per head in the world) at home.
An unacceptable coalition partner of all the Storting's other parties, he combined calls for tax cuts of up to £8 billion with demands that Norway spend more of its oil revenues.
Oslo saves billions every year in its Petroleum Fund for the day when oil runs out. The fund is currently among the biggest 10 in Europe, with shares and bonds placed abroad. According to the Finance Ministry, it could total £47 billion, or 30 per cent of GDP, by 2002.
"A reduction of 10 to 12 per cent of the Petroleum Fund would finance a better public health programme and more efficient social welfare for families," said Mr Hagen, whose party has more than doubled its representation.
His call was being echoed in the centre ground. "We are a rich country, but the gap between the rich and the poor is only growing," the Centre Party leader, Ms Anne Enger Lahnstein, said. The populist rural party, backbone of the anti-EU movement, has a protectionist and interventionist programme and will back the CPP in easing spending curbs. But even with the unwelcome votes of Mr Hagen they may not have a parliamentary majority.
Mr Bondevik's party, also strongly anti-EU, has nearly doubled its vote to 14.5 per cent by portraying itself as the only realistic alternative to Labour. Its leader toned down its traditional campaigns to roll back liberal Norwegian laws on abortion and homosexuality. He was ordained in Norway's Lutheran state church at the same time as developing a political career.
Additional reporting by Reuter, AFP