Taxes, Gaza, Trump: head-to-head between Labour and the right in the Norwegian vote

Therefore, the parties and voters focused particularly on the economy: inflation, the cost of electricity and, above all, taxes: above all, the abolition of a controversial patrimonial asset brought to the current configuration by the centre-left government.

Norway applies a 1% tax rate on all assets above 1.76 million Norwegian kroner (about 150,000 euro), but offers a number of discounts, particularly for real estate. Now the right-wing parties, the Conservatives and even more so the populists of the Porgresso Party, are pressing to abolish it, in whole or in part, with the implicit support of the business world, which does not go as far as any explicit endorsement.

"Øystein Dørum, chief economist of the NHO, Norway's largest business association, points out: 'We still want the lowest possible taxation, but we are not asking to lower the tax on corporate profits, currently at 22 per cent, but to abolish the assets on what we call working capital - machinery, buildings, shares, i.e. the elements most closely related to business activity - in order to ensure competitiveness for Norwegian companies. As for parties and coalitions, however, the entrepreneurs do not take a position: 'It is about 15 years since the NHO stopped supporting a party,' Dørum points out, 'as our counterpart LO (the trade union confederation, ndr) does with Labour. We care about the content of the policy. You can of course read between the lines'.

The economy at the centre of the debate has produced, at least according to the polls, a clear winner. "Normally on economic and fiscal issues it is the Conservatives who gain," notes Peter Egge Langsæther, "but this time it is the Progress Party, which has been less focused on its traditional warhorse of immigration, that has capitalised on discontent over tax increases and the cost of living.

The party, in the words of Johan Giertsen, co-founder of the polling site pollofpolls.no, is "the Norwegian declination of the populist wave" of the right in Europe, even if - as Langsæther points out - it represents a "more moderate face, not comparable to Alternative für Deutschland in Germany or Rassemblement National in France". The latest polls even show the party led by Sylvi Listhaug in second place, with 21% of the vote, well ahead of the Conservatives of former Prime Minister Erna Solberg, who have plummeted to 14.4%. "For the Conservatives," Giertsen points out, "a catastrophe is in the offing, one of the worst results in the post-war period.

First, with 27%, remain the Labour Party of Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre and, not insignificant factor, of Finance Minister Jens Stoltenberg, who returned to national politics after leaving the NATO secretariat. And here foreign policy, although marginalised in the debate, could come back into the picture, as Ulf Sverdrup further explains: 'There is a new world, an international context full of uncertainties where the politicians who might be preferred are those who are more responsible, with proven experience in international organisations. Hence figures such as the current prime minister, already a respected foreign minister and in politics for more than 20 years, or Stoltenberg.

Global scenarios are also a source of great concern in the Norwegian business world, as the NHO's chief economist is quick to admit: 'The Trump presidency,' Dørum notes, 'has brought a huge load of uncertainty to the world and to our business system. We are a small economy with substantial but limited resources and we have built our wealth on trade, on openness. We are therefore very concerned about an increasingly protectionist world, where our exports to the US (about 8% of the total, more if you add indirect exports) risk tariffs of 15% and more. And we are also worried about possible EU countermeasures'.

The polls see as many as nine parties above the 4% threshold and therefore, in a proportional system, a very fragmented Parliament and a very uncertain result are looming, where in fact the centre-left (Labour, Socialists, Greens, Centre and, perhaps, Communists) and centre-right (Conservatives, Progress Party, Christian Democrats and Liberals) will be pitted against each other. With the added variable of early voting: almost two million Norwegians, out of four eligible voters, voted before Election Day, and the latest polls, which, for example, record a clear advance by the Greens, do not take the past into account.

"If the left wins,' Langsæther concludes, 'the most likely outcome is that Labour will continue to govern alone (they are already leading a minority government, ed.), securing the indispensable majority in Norway, the one on the budget, with the support of the left-wing parties and the Centre, and seeking variable alliances on other issues: for example, support from the Conservatives on oil exploration. If the right wins, it is complicated, because the first party of a possible coalition could be the populists of Progress, which the smaller parties of the centre-right, especially the Liberals, do not like. The populists themselves would like a two-party coalition, only with the Liberals, supported from the outside by Christian Democrats and Liberals'.

Basically a Dutch-style scenario, which, however, foundered in The Hague after not even a year.