News from Norway, from the BBC:
Norwegian centre-right leader Erna Solberg is set to form a new government after Labour Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg admitted election defeat.
Ms Solberg described her win as "a historic election victory for the right-wing parties".
Her Conservative Party is widely expected to form a government with the anti-immigration Progress Party.
It is Norway's first general election since attacks by a far-right extremist left 77 people dead in 2011.
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Ms Solberg, 52, will become Norway's second female prime minister and its first Conservative prime minister since 1990.
She told supporters in Oslo: "Today the voters have produced a historic election victory for the right-wing parties. We will give this country a new government."
Correspondents say at least the top two cabinet posts - and possibly the top three - are likely to be filled by women.
The vote was Norway's first general election since Anders Behring Breivik - a far-right extremist - killed 77 people in an Oslo bombing and a gun attack at a Labour Party youth camp in 2011.
Breivik had previously been a member of the Progress Party.
While the hapless Republicans in vibrantly conservative America are labelled as "right-wing extremists" those dead-as-a-doornail Europeans have actually voted into office the party of a bona fide right wing extremist.
In the words of a stinky old hippie: something's happening here.
On another site, a blogger opined that someday Breivik will be honored as a hero. Heaven help us if our heroes are mentally ill losers who massacre children.
ReplyDeleteNot sure this is an actual sea change, or another oscillation in the parliamentary cycle (as is the case I believe with the conservative government elected in Australia.)
ReplyDeleteThe actual gain for the conservative parties and loss of seats for Labor was relatively small. Labor still pulled a larger percentage than the Conservatives. Still plenty of unapologetic anti-national Socialists in Norway.
Also not certain yet that the Progress Party will actually be part of the governing coalition. The Christian Democrats don't want to be part of a government with them.
Progress hasn't quite broken through the cordon sanitaire yet. It would certainly be something if they did.