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Weekly Briefing – Week 11: Cities Gear Up for Elections

Long until the next election, you say? Not at all, at least not in Norway’s major cities. Major changes in personnel, a rapid search for a new mayor and city council leader, as well as chaos and loss of majority. So far, the new year has presented the three largest cities in Norway with a series of political challenges, and they essentially mark the beginning of the long election campaign ahead of the municipal elections in September 2027.

New Faces in Oslo

City Council Leader Eirik Lae Solberg (H) is reshuffling his own council staff and preparing for next year’s municipal election campaign. Out goes the seasoned politician James Stove Lorentzen (H), who does not seek re-election, and in comes rising star Mehmet Kaan Inan (H), who is expected to receive a prominent place on the party’s electoral list in 2027. The fact that Councillor Anita Leirvik North (H) is being promoted to Urban Development Councillor with a larger portfolio also indicates that she is intended to play a central role in next year’s Oslo election campaign. The City Council Leader is pointing to new forces in an attempt to strengthen his own prospects for re-election, and the question is whether voters will be tempted.

The City Council consists of Høyre and Venstre, and forms a majority together with Frp and KrF. The constellation has experienced both votes of no confidence and budget agreement chaos, and much of this stems from the fact that the political distance between Venstre and Frp remains considerable.

Frp has seen a surge in opinion polls, and much suggests that the party will hold a stronger position after next year’s election than it does now. This will make it more difficult for Høyre and Venstre to keep the party outside a centre-right city council. At the same time, there has been ongoing internal unrest within Oslo Frp, which just a few weeks ago elected the current deputy mayor, Julianne Ofstad, as its new leader. The Storting election result was a disappointment for Venstre, and with Frp on the rise, a shift of sides in Oslo politics cannot be ruled out, should the election result place Venstre in a pivotal position.

 A Constellation Under Pressure in Bergen

Both the governing mayor and the mayor of Bergen have announced that neither of them will seek re-election in 2027. The party has chosen a rapid nomination process for the two top positions on the list, and will select its top duo as early as 15 June this year. Among the candidates, three stand out as contenders for one or both of these positions: Finance Councillor Eirik Tennfjord, Urban Development Councillor Eivind Nævdal Bolstad, and Social Affairs Councillor Charlotte Spurkeland. The latter was recently the reason that governing mayor Christine B. Meyer faced a vote of no confidence, which she narrowly survived following the city council vote. The constellation led by Høyre is under significant pressure both in newspaper columns and in local opinion polls, and a restart of the council’s ambitions for re-election is therefore the primary reason for the early nomination of the party’s top candidates. Whether this improves the chances of re-election in a city where Frp is surging in the polls is a question that once again makes Bergen one of the foremost battlegrounds of the local election campaign. It will be an exciting race to follow ahead of the election.

Thin Majority in Trondheim

The majority collapsed for the city council in Trondheim at the start of the year, when Miljøpartiet De Grønne left the governing coalition. Transitions between various parties have made majority viability a recurring challenge for the council constellation, and creative measures have been taken in an attempt to maintain the majority, including through agreements between Høyre and a representative who resigned from MDG. Criticism has been fierce following the revelation that the now-independent representative Aurora Meland Winger receives her daily salary from Høyre’s city council group. The latest maneuver to secure a functional governing council was made by expanding the council, with KrF joining the Høyre-led council that currently governs the city. Al though the party holds only one seat in the city council, their entry will help secure an extremely fragile majority behind the current city council leader from Høyre. For while chaos reigns in the Trøndelag capital, Mayor Kent Ranum (H) is attending the Armed Forces Senior Command Course and is therefore on leave from the city council. Ranum’s deputy representative has also resigned from his party and is no longer loyal to the Høyre majority in the city. New majority calculations are therefore required before the current council constellation can declare itself ready for re-election at next year’s elections.

The Long Election Campaign

For all the centre-right governed major cities, the underlying motivation behind these moves is a clear attempt to regain solid footing for re-election at next year’s municipal elections. At present, very few voters are focused on what they will vote for in September next year, and as a result, the polls primarily reflect that national opinion poll trends are also playing out in Norway’s major cities. Frp is performing well, Høyre has yet to reclaim its position as the leading and driving force in a centre-right alternative, and the urban populations are not exactly rewarding the three city councils with the so-called governance bonus.

Much can happen before the municipal elections, and it is too early to conclude that there will be changes in Oslo, Bergen, or Trondheim. However, the prospect that the chaos may continue and that nothing is certain until election day and inter-party negotiations have been completed, currently appears to be a prediction carrying very short odds.

What Does This Mean for Business?

For the business community, the period leading up to the turn of the year is therefore an important window in which to exert influence and position themselves to reduce the impact of potential political chaos and/or a change of governing parties. Both policy programme work and nomination processes form the very foundation for the policies by which municipalities will be governed once the election has been held, and new candidates for city councils and municipal assemblies create new opportunities to establish strong relationships with all parties.

 

This text has been translated using generative AI and quality-checked by a First House employee.