The Storting’s adoption of Norway’s new Election Act led to the introduction of the closed-list electoral system for parliamentary elections. The Election Act eliminated the last remaining elements of personal voting for the national assembly.
Personal selection to the Norwegian national assembly is now decided by the most powerful of the powerful within the parties, and aspiring members of Parliament are best advised to stay on good terms with them: Party colleagues with party elites scarcely less dominant than the old lords, counts, dukes, and barons are now the electorate of parliamentary politicians.
Read more: The 2025 parliamentary election decided halfway long before Election Day (and it’s not a joke)
It is only in rare cases that internal opponents, such as the Labour Party’s Trond Giske, manage to override the central leadership locally in their electoral district.
Oagal chose a conservative approach when determining which 80 named individuals were elected long before voters approached the ballot boxes. Of the 80, only one did not get elected – from the Centre Party, which had managed things exceptionally poorly.
The editorial team also conservatively assumed that leveling seats did not count as a preliminary-selection criterion. One of the 79 entered Parliament on such a seat, and another was the top candidate in two electoral districts (!), but entered Parliament from a different district than the one Oagal had projected. We count that.
The hit rate thus reached a high 97.5 percent. The editorial team could have reduced the hit rate somewhat by applying a less conservative approach. In reality, an estimated 120–130 professional career politicians could be confident that Norwegian voters would not disrupt things for them in the autumn’s purportedly free, democratic election.
Oagal made repeated efforts toward Norwegian media to contribute to critical journalism about the democratic failure represented by this election.
Read more: Darkness arises when the media chase where those in power shine
The prevailing mantra throughout Norwegian society is that we have such a fine democracy – and we do. But it is in decline, aided significantly by the media’s sin of omission in failing to pursue politicians at all three levels for their systematic erosion of popular sovereignty.
Norwegian media are remarkably blind to this. In their daily routines, editors self-satisfiedly act as standard-bearers of democracy when they grill the political industry with cheerfully critical questions posed to politicians they often themselves want in power – and on whom they are economically dependent, since subscriber revenues are insufficient to fill the payrolls; press subsidies from the very politicians they interview are required.
We see this dismal editorial coverage across all Western democracies. It has little to do with championing voters and democracy, and much to do with carrying the political industry forward at the expense of democracy, while proudly presenting themselves as – and believing they are – democracy’s most important supporters.
Once, the media were the fourth estate. Now, social media are.
De fleste av artiklene på Oagal er utarbeidet av redaksjonen. Innholdet fra redaksjonen er det fortløpende redaksjonelle arbeidet i Oagal. Redaksjonen driver undersøkende journalistikk, utvikler ideer til saker og utarbeider artikler ved hjelp av ulike tilgjengelige kilder og verktøy. Meningsbærende innhold og også reportasjer bærer skribentens navn.
0 Comments