“It is often said that no country has as many experts on U.S. politics as Norway.” This also applies to Norwegian media, which overlook the beam in the eye of our own domestic politics. One may like it or not, but voters gave Donald Trump a clear victory. Yet the road to that victory began long before—long before Trump himself. The same applies to the next parliamentary election in Norway, where the outcome will largely reproduce the same central power politicians as last time, albeit with a somewhat stronger tilt toward the right.
We will return to this below. First, however, to how Norway’s national assembly outdoes the United States when it comes to election rigging. Our own parliamentary manipulation began long before recent events, but has become acutely relevant with the adoption of the Election Act effective from 1 May 2024 and the rejection of several constitutional proposals that would have strengthened citizen power at the slightest expense of the national assembly.
For one thing, the Election Law Committee differs little from other public committees marked by severe lack of sectoral representation. Ask the system and it answers itself. Such committees are typically filled with politicians, civil servants, lawyers, and former committee members. Innovation is rare. As far as Oagal can see, not even New Zealand’s widely discussed electoral reform is mentioned in NOU 2020: 6 Free and Secret Elections—a title that can easily be read as tinged with irony.
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The Election Law Committee did propose several important measures for Norwegian democracy, including lowering the electoral threshold from four to three percent, which would be far fairer. The committee also sought to address the stark reality that personal voting for the Storting was merely theoretical.
The path to parliamentary consideration runs through a government proposal—an Election Act bill from the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development. The ministry is controlled by two heavily embattled governing parties that will need every candidate they can secure in the next parliamentary election.
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This political administration recommended maintaining the electoral threshold, which ensures there is no reasonable correspondence between votes cast and seats in the Storting. This harms small parties in the category “others,” which received 9.48 percent of the vote in the 2023 local elections and would not have received leveling seats had it been a parliamentary election.
One may suspect a moment of dark humor when ministry politicians chose to recommend abolishing the already weak personal voting system rather than strengthening it. The justification was that it misled voters into believing they had influence over candidate selection. The solution was removal, as proposed in Prop. 45 L (2022–2023) Election Act, page 92.
Based on an overall assessment, the ministry finds it undesirable to give voters influence over which of a party’s candidates are elected. Political parties bear a significant responsibility for composing electoral lists appropriately, and the ministry trusts that parties fulfill this responsibility well.
As noted above, the ministry considers it unfortunate that voters can alter ballots without those changes affecting the outcome. In addition, the current personal voting system requires considerable effort and resources to count personal votes that ultimately have no effect on who is elected. The current system also constrains ballot design. By removing the option of personal votes, ballots can be simplified.
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Both the maintenance of the four-percent threshold and the abolition of personal voting were adopted by the Storting, making 2024 a horrific year for Norwegian democracy. Support was as strong among major opposition parties as among the embattled governing parties—demonstrating a misguided, cross-party solidarity of self-preservation.
Read also: A critical look at the Economist Intelligence Unit’s democracy index
During the recent U.S. election, it was claimed that editors at outlets like the Washington Post were dictated to by their owners. Norway’s Storting is hardly different when it comes to media ownership, even as both newsrooms and parliament insist the media are independent. Politicians and political journalists who meet daily in the parliamentary cafeteria and press clubs likely agree that sufficient distance exists.
The state, by decision of the Storting, owns NRK and heavily subsidizes other media. Years ago, Elin Ørjasæter wrote in Nettavisen that NRK alone received roughly three times as much in state funding as the constitutional branch of government—the courts. During local elections, NRK prominently displayed bar charts featuring all dominant parties and a single category labeled “others.” Arguing that major parties were most relevant, these “others” were largely absent from decisive TV debates that influence which ballots end up in the ballot boxes.
Small parties also struggled for visibility in media election calculators, including those of heavily state-subsidized outlets. In balanced calculators, established parties could have been outperformed by “others” had challengers been included.
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Even if one cannot claim direct control by the national assembly, ownership of NRK and long-standing operating subsidies to other media undeniably shape editorial orientation. Such subsidies should not be permanent operating grants, but temporary support to help new challenger media get started and to sustain a limited number of niche outlets in culture, expertise, and politics.
Outlets like Klassekampen and Dagsavisen lean left and receive heavy subsidies year after year. Yet, since more than half of Norwegian journalists identify with the left, there is little risk that those perspectives go unheard. Accordingly, support should be significantly reduced. The Media Authority—also part of the political industry—fails its mandate by perpetuating such imbalances.
Back to Donald Trump and the United States.
Oagal’s core point is that Norwegian media and politicians have been eager to comment negatively on the newly elected U.S. president and the election, while adept at overlooking how things function at home. Oagal exists as a small contribution to changing that. While U.S. elections—Trump, Biden, Harris—are near-permanent fixtures in Norwegian, politically owned and subsidized media, the weaknesses of our own system and the politicians behind them receive only brief attention. A sustained struggle for justice and re-examination is hard to find.
Trump is accused of securing support within the Republican Party through fundraising mechanisms such as Save America and redistributing funds to loyalists. Just like Norwegian power politicians, he has placed loyal supporters in key positions controlling party nominations and candidate selection.
As in Norway, the U.S. electoral system favors the two established parties. Oagal analyzes the U.S. system in a separate article.
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.
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