Norway - September 2023

The results of the local elections show a shift towards more conservative local government. After more than a century, conservative opposition parties, including the right-wing anti-immigration Progress Party (FrP), came out ahead. The 11 September polls asked voters to elect representatives for local councils in 356 municipalities and 11 counties. The ruling centre-left Labour party lost ground, marking the first time the party did not place first in local elections since 1924. Labour placed second, declining from 24.9 per cent of the vote in 2019 to 21.7 per cent. The opposition centre-right Høyre won 25.9 per cent of the vote, up from 20.1 per cent in the 2019 local elections, even outperforming Labour in Oslo. FrP came in third on an anti-immigration platform, boosting its vote share from 8.3 per cent to 11.4 per cent. The turnout was 62.4 per cent, down from 64.7 per cent in 2019. A total of 42 per cent of candidates who stood in the election are women, according to Statistics Norway (a decrease of 0.7 percentage points compared to the 2019 election).

Sources: Euractiv, AP, Election Directorate, NRK, Science Norway, Statistics Norway (1), Statistics Norway (2)