Rocketing Red does not save the Red-Green

Leader of Red, Bjørnar Moxnes. Photo: Red

Rocketing Red does not save the Red-Green block

Despite the best average poll result of all times, both for the Marxist party Red as such, and together with the Socialist Party (SV), the non-socialist majority prevails according to the polls made in June.

 

After the eight national polls have been through the Pollofpolls‘ blender, it is clear that the Labour Party’s weak appeal is spoiling the party for the Red-Green bed partners.

If there were parliamentary elections just now, the Government, consisting of the Conservatives, the Progress Party and the Liberals, with the support from the Christian Democrats, would obtain a total of 87 mandates.

The Red-Green opposition parties; Labour, the Centre Party, the Socialists, Red and the Greens (MDG) – would have had to do with 82 seats in the Norwegian Parliament.

In the general elections last autumn, the relationship was 88 against 81 mandates.

Red skyrockets

In the wake of former Minister of Immigration and integration, Sylvi Listhaug’s (Progress Party) demise earlier this spring, Red, under the leadership of their sole parliamentary representative Bjørnar Moxnes, has skyrocketed in the polls.

The party reached its best result ever when it received support from 4.3 per cent of the voters in April; that record has been utterly crushed in June. Red has doubled its voter base since the election, and receives support from 4.8 per cent of the voters, well above the barrier limit. This would have given them eight seats in Parliament.

According to the June polls, Red is larger than MDG, Christian Democrats and Liberals.

Red’s growth does however not affect the figures for “neighbour” SV, which is at 7.3 per cent in June, noteworthy. This is a clear progress since the general elections and in line with the figures from the last six months. Simple math shows that Red and SV have support from 12.1 per cent of those eligible to vote in Norway.

Labour is really struggling

The June figures confirm that Labour is unable to win the voters back. For the ninth consecutive month the party is smaller than the Conservatives, and in June the ratio is at 23.2 against 27.2.

The trend is that socialist voters move further to the left.

Labour had a dismyssal national election last autumn, and from December last year onwards, #metoo-cases and deputy leader Trond Giske’s demise from the giddy heights of power, took a lot of attention away from policies. In spring, party leader Jonas Gahr Støre had to endure internal strife during the debate of Norwegian accession to the EU energy agency Acer.

At the same time, the Centre Party is still cruising along and achieves an average of 11.0 per cent confidence in June. The party has throughout the winter and spring profiled itself by fighting against Acer, the sugar tax, the so-called death tax and merger of Finnmark and Troms into one county.

No clear skies

Although the Conservatives receives support from 27.2 per cent of voters in June and that Prime Minister Erna Solberg holds her majority, the opinion polls do not give reason to rest on the laurels.

The reason for this is the weak support of their partners, the Liberals and Christian Democrats, which both remain around the barrier limit of 4 per cent.

The Liberals entered the Government in January, but participation at the King’s table has not provided the party with increased support this far. The Liberals are at 4.1 per cent in June, exactly as they were in January and 0.3 percentage points lower than on Election Day last year.

The Christian Democrats have no formal cooperation agreement with the Government and is currently involved in an internal process regarding with whom and how the party is to cooperate in the time to come. The Christian Democrats has In the last half of the year settled around the barrier limit and receives support from 4.1 per cent of the voters in June.

At the same time, several arrows point in the wrong direction for the Progress Party. They receive support from 13.4 per cent of the voters this time around. This is a decline of 2.4 percentage points since April and down 1.8 percentage points since the general election.

 

© NTB scanpix / #Norway Today