Two-party politics

Last month I drew readers’ attention to a webinar I was participating in at the Robert Menzies Institute, launching their paper on the future of the two-party system. The discussion has now been posted online: you can listen to it here.

One of the points I tried to make there is that a two-party system is to some extent a matter of degree. It need not involve just two major parties; you can instead have two broad coalitions of parties, which provide flexibility – both in terms of shifting balance within the coalitions, and of centrist parties that are able to move from one to the other – while still offering voters a binary choice. I think I cited Sweden as an example of this sort of system, but I might equally have mentioned Norway.

So when Norway went to the polls yesterday, although there were ten parties represented in the old parliament (all but one of which made it back), there were fundamentally only two possible outcomes: either a left-or-centre or a right-of-centre government. And either would be a broad coalition, formal or not; there was no possibility of a single party, or even two closely allied parties, winning a majority.

Incumbent Labour prime minister Jonas Støre has governed with varying degrees of support from four other parties: two far left, the Greens, and the Centre Party, for a left total of 100 of the 169 seats in parliament. Centre was initially included in a formal coalition, but its ministers walked out last January following a dispute on energy policy. It did not, however, take the disagreement to the extent of crossing the floor to put the right in power.

Labour’s stocks improved after the departure of Centre, largely due to the appointment of popular former prime minister Jens Stoltenberg (who until last year was head of NATO) as finance minister. And yesterday its vote was up by 1.9% to 28.2%, yielding a gain of five seats. Centre, on the other hand, lost more than half its vote, dropping 19 seats to finish with just nine. With losses for one of the far left parties almost balancing gains for the other and the Greens, the left-of-centre total fell to 49.3% (down 6.7%) and 8788 seats (down 1312).

But Labour’s position is stronger than it was, not just because of its gains and Centre’s losses, but also due to what happened on the other side. The right-of-centre total, spread across four parties, increased from 40.4% to 46.4%, bringing them collectively a gain of 1413 seats. But that masks a huge shift within the group: the centre-right Conservatives are down by almost six points and the far-right Progress Party has more than doubled its vote to 23.9%, winning 48 seats (up 27), twice the Conservative total, to become easily the largest opposition party. (See official results here.)

It should be said that by European standards the Progress Party is not all that extreme; it has participated in government before, without turning Norway into a fascist state or anything remotely like one. It is anti-immigrant but also anti-Russian. (There is a further-right Trumpist and pro-Russian party, the Norway Democrats, but it won only 0.7% of the vote and no seats.) Nonetheless, any wavering centrist MPs – such as those from Centre, or from the Liberals, its counterpart on the right – might well baulk at the prospect of a government in which it would play the leading role.

The other thing that will help Støre is the fact that parliament can only unseat him if it has someone else to put in his place: its term is fixed at four years, with no provision for early elections. Under a different system, the unreconstructed Marxists of the Red Party, with their eight seats, might be tempted to make trouble, but as it is there is not much they can do unless they want a right-wing government.