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What is needed to make cooperation “over the middle” possible in Norway as well? More crazy things have happened in the past year.
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On the eve of 2022 came a new, controversial question: Can the same thing happen in Norway as in Denmark? Can we also have an “above the middle” – a government collaboration that includes both the traditional right and left sides?
No one has really wanted to take the problem seriously. The person who is perhaps most strongly suspected of being able to make such a change of direction in Norway has already tried to reject the idea.
Jonas Gahr Støre and the Labor Party created almost a blueprint of the Danish Social Democrats’ winning formula from before the last general election – when it was “Arne’s turn”. In Norway, the translation was «ordinary people’s turn». It is good enough for Ap to secure support and secure election victory in autumn 2021.
Ap could need a new vitamin injection. Could it now be the “centre’s turn”?
At his Christmas press conference in December, Støre rejected the possibility of a new, Danish copy anyway. He typically did so by asking an open question: Between whom should the political debate in Denmark go now?
Before it makes sense to answer, we must take a closer look at what happened in Denmark. What triggered the political earthquake?
The short version is that the political ringleader Lars Løkke Rasmussen, former prime minister for the bourgeois party Venstre, grew tremendously. He got that by launching himself and sitting the new party Moderates as an initiative for a government across the traditional political blocs.
Mette Frederiksen, Prime Minister and leader of the Social Democratic Party, got a quick ride. With her well-developed political instincts, she grabbed the meat bone out of the mouth of Lars Løkke Rasmussen, and paraded it proudly in the election campaign. Frederiksen also wanted a government “above the middle”. The voters liked it. The strategy secured her a surprisingly good result, and renewed confidence as prime minister.
In summary: Rasmussen was the catalyst. Frederiksen exploits the situation to his own advantage.
Can do the same happen in Norway? The premise is different, it is pointed out. Denmark has a lower barrier limit, which gives a greater opportunity to succeed with new political initiatives – as Rasmussen did. The Norwegian blocking limit of four percent does not seem insurmountable in our days, where a political message can quickly gain strong tailwinds.
The political differences between Norway and Denmark may also mean that we have to look elsewhere to find the catalyst. It can be installed in a completely different place in the political engine.
An opportunity may arise in connection with SV having to exchange party leader this one of ours. If SV were to choose the “left-wing candidate” Kirsti Bergstø, with the horse of the pair Ingrid Fiskaa as deputy leader (standard bearer for, among other things, opposition to NATO and wind turbines in SV), the tectonic plates in Norwegian politics could start to move.
Bergstø can of course develop into a pragmatic leader, as Audun Lysbakken has done, but that is not a given. If SV moves to the left to compete with Rødt, the gap may become large enough for the Labor Party to wave goodbye.
Unthinkable? In a historical context, it is no coincidence that the Labor Party secures a majority for policy and the budget by moving towards the centre. For a long period leading up to 2005, this was the rule. Power in Norwegian politics has always gone through the centre.
It is also not inconceivable if we look at what are the major political lines of conflict today. The electricity price crisis could last for several years, and in itself illuminates many of the fundamental lines of conflict: In matters of climate policy, our relationship with Europe – and with the market economy as such, the distance between parties such as the Labor Party and the Right is smaller than within the blocs on both left and right side.
Right-wing leader Erna Solberg was challenged on this very thing before Christmas in an interview with NRK’s ”Politisk kvarter”. Solberg’s attempt to parry just showed how good the question was.
She pointed out that the right and the left disagreed about many things, for example about free choice of treatment.
As if it is a matter that sets the electorate on fire.
Solberg thinks anyway in real ways, in a way. She is trying to drag politics down to hill level. It was also the method Mette Frederiksen used when she won the election with her cross-block message in Denmark.
Cooperation “above the middle” was necessary to solve the big challenges, she said. She should not be emphasized on good relations in the EU and system loyalty. Cooperation above the middle was necessary to get the close things – for example the healthcare system, and to have control over the economy in difficult times.
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Disturbed contradictions – his question about who the political debate should go between reveals what he fears: He fears that the political debate will be between the political center and the extremes. That the debate must be between liberals in the center and anti-liberal forces on both the right and left of politics – between the middle and the extremes of the so-called political horseshoe.
It is not difficult to share the fear of what might happen with such a development.
But what if cooperation in the center is necessary to secure «the close things» here at home too? It’s not a completely crazy thought.
And far less crisp than much of what has happened in the past year.