After eight years in opposition, the Norwegian left won the elections on Monday, September 13. Labor leader Jonas Gahr Store, 61-year-old multimillionaire, graduated from Sciences Po, is expected to become the next prime minister. With Sweden, Denmark and Finland, the four Nordic countries will then be governed by the Social Democrats, which has not happened for twenty years.
Labor recorded only 26.4% of the vote (against 27.4% in 2017) and therefore made their worst score since 2001. But the push of the centrist party, which came in third place with 13.6% of the vote, and the advance of the Socialist Left (7.5%) enabled the three parties to win an absolute majority in the Storting, the Norwegian Parliament, with 89 seats out of 165.
In front of the activists gathered in Oslo on Monday evening, the Labor leader promised “A new course”. The result of the election “Shows that Norwegians want a fairer society”, commented Jonas Gahr Store, who is committed to a policy “For ordinary people”, thus repeating its campaign slogan. Among his priorities, he set out “The fight against social inequalities, employment, investments in the welfare state” and “A climate policy, which reduces emissions and creates jobs “.
Elitist and bureaucrat
Jonas Gahr Store has come a long way. At the start of the year, his party was less than 20% in the polls and his resignation had even been mentioned. Minister of Foreign Affairs, and briefly of Health, in the government of Jens Stoltenberg (between 2005 and 2013), he was elected head of the party in 2014. An atypical figure to lead the rose training.
Coming from a very wealthy family, raised in one of the richest districts of Oslo, Jonas Gahr Store did not make his classes in the young labor movement (AUF), like his predecessors, but joined the party in 1995, after brilliant studies and a career start in senior administration, then as adviser to Labor Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland.
During the last legislative elections in 2017, he had come under criticism for his financial investments and his elitist and bureaucratic side. In recent months, he has succeeded in asserting his authority and appeared to grow up in the role of future prime minister, placing the fight against social inequalities at the heart of his campaign. He promised to lower taxes for Norwegians who earn less than 750,000 crowns (around 74,000 euros) per year, and to increase taxes on the highest earners.
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