Building bridges over murky waters: future inter-party coalition formation in Norway

If you try to walk across a river without a Bridge under you, you will fall in the water. This would seem to be common sense to most of us.

Similarly, if you are a party trying to govern a liberal democratic country without any hope of a majority you are likely to sink (aside from some instances where those crossing at a shallows or using stepping stones are mistaken for being people that can walk on water).

The long-established political routes and bridges in Norway have already been subject to changes and diversions over the last few years. In this election they may even be circumvented in favour of a new political bridge, created by the one party in the parliament (Storting) that has never been in government before. First however, let us take a brief look at what roads have most often been travelled in forming governments over the last 60 years or so.

Well travelled routes, and their recent diversions

The two more established options in Norwegian politics since the early 20th century, have been that of a Labour government and a coalition of between two and four of the centre to centre-right parties, options which have themselves been changing over the last 10 years.

Mainstream Social Democrat parties in the Nordic countries have tended to be the dominant parties of government in the 20th century in much the same way as the UK Conservative party or Fianna Fáil in the Republic of Ireland. The Norwegian Labour party has been in government for (roughly) 44 years out of the last 64. Whether in government or opposition it has been the largest party in the parliament since 1927. Like Social Democratic parties elsewhere in Europe, it has embraced something of a liberalizing trend since the 1980s, but nevertheless has not significantly altered longstanding social democratic institutions. 1

One of the recent difficulties it has faced is a declining number of parliamentary seats, compelling the building of new bridges and adoption of coalition politics for the first time, being in a Red-Green government with the Centre party and Socialist Left (SV) since 2005.

The centre-to-centre right alternative has in the past consisted of the Conservatives (Høyre), Christian Democrats (HrK), Liberals (Venstre - on social issues relatively progressive), and the Centre party (Centrism/Agrarian politics). It has even seen all four groups successfully find common ground on which to govern Norway between 1965-71, with combinations of two to three of these parties governing most of the years when Labour have been in opposition.

This group has had to adapt to a decline in their levels of representation, with the Conservatives reduced from 2nd to 3rd place in terms of parliamentary seats, and some of the parties losing their representation altogether for several years, such as the Liberals between 1985 and 1993. The realignment of the Centre party as more on the left of the political spectrum and thus less likely to participate in such a coalition, has also presented a challenge, arguably helping to collapse the centre-right coalition in 2000, and leaving the remaining three centre-to-centre right parties to form the government between 2001 and 2005.

As for why these two groupings have seen their parliamentary support drop in recent years, this appears mainly down to the creation in 1973 of what is now called the (FRP) Progress Party. Started as an anti-tax protest movement, it has grown to make recent breakthroughs in parliament, becoming the 2nd largest party in 2005. Its more classical liberal and nationalist approach has attracted significant support by challenging the established consensus, along with its outsider status as the only parliamentary party that has not participated before in government (with even the Socialist Left party also founded in 1973 being in government for the last 4 years). The label libertarian has sometimes been used to describe it, perhaps misleadingly, when its liberalizing views on the economy are contrasted with its more socially conservative credentials on issues like immigration, or its policy of favouring new oil drilling off Lofoten and Vesteraalen, but putting any such decision to a public referendum.2 It has been largely ignored in the past as a bridge partner by the other six parties, but its size may make it difficult to ignore in any successful government after this election.3

Bridging the gap, what lies ahead?

Thus in 2009, the waters are somewhat clouded as to which bridge is preferred or to where these bridges will lead. Whereas in 2005 there was arguably a relatively settled choice between the pre-election Red-Green alliance and the continuation of the incumbent centre-right government, the Progress Party’s increased strength as a bloc appears to have blurred the choices at this election, leaving a sizeable number of voters undecided.4 Whilst it is always possible for strange and unpredictable things to happen in politics, arguably there are three most plausible routes for successful bridges this time round:

1) Continuation of the Red-Green governing coalition
2) Formation of a multiparty centre/centre right coalition
3) A Progress Party minority government, receiving support from the Conservatives


1) Continuation of the Red-Green governing coalition

This is the equivalent of continuing to cross a bridge built by several people, each trusting that the other will continue work to keep their section useable. The possibility of this has varied considerably over the last year: the coalition parties were behind in the polls, rocked by various corruption scandals 5 , but recently they have seen polling leads, possibly down to such factors as the government’s perceived strength in handling the economic crisis and Prime Minister Stoltenberg’s personal popularity.6

However, even if Labour does well as currently projected, any drop in support for the other coalition parties could still eliminate their majority (indeed, one fear is that the Socialist Left’s poor result in the 2007 local elections could be repeated in this national election).7 There have been suggestions that Labour could form a minority government or even embark upon a more wide-ranging coalition. The first seems unlikely, with a defeat for the coalition, even if it is as a consequence of losses for the Centre party and Socialist Left, viewed psychologically as an electorate passing judgement upon the coalition as a whole. As for the second, it would require either a new socialist party in parliament, or else persuasion of either the Liberals or the Christian Democrats to join the coalition. Whilst this is not impossible, the Christian Democrats are somewhat sceptical of Socialist Left participation, and would be unlikely to join any coalition that included them, whilst the last election when the Liberals talked about supporting Labour was in 1985, the same instance as when they lost all their parliamentary seats. It is thus a move which would take a lot of persuasion and probably the breaking of the existing Red-Green partnership.

Only if there is no other viable option would a Labour minority government be politically possible.

2) Formation of a multiparty centre/centre right coalition (excluding Progress)

This is the equivalent of a group who used to build bridges together being trusted to build a new one and maintain it. It is possible, however there are factors working against it.

Some may point to Fredrik Reinfeldt’s success in Sweden in 2006, when a pre-electoral alliance of the same type of parties toppled an incumbent Social Democrat coalition. However, the differences in Norwegian politics have prevented that kind of pre-electoral coalition emerging, with the centre-to-centre right divided, facing multiple opponents/potential new partners from both left and right. Even if reduced somewhat in size, its seat numbers mean that Progress party support would almost certainly be required in some form to help such a coalition achieve a majority, as was the case between 2001 and 2005. They are unlikely to repeat such support this time without being full partners at the Cabinet table, whilst the leaders of both Christian Democrats and Liberals have said they will not work in a coalition that includes the Progress party.


3) A Progress Party minority government, receiving support (on key votes) from the Conservatives (probably from outside the Cabinet)

This is the equivalent of building a bridge halfway across a river and then trusting person/persons to take you the rest of the distance by boat to the other side. Although the likelihood has diminished, this still remains an option, depending on how the governing coalition performs.

In spite of some recent poll setbacks, the Progress party is still a force to be reckoned with, particularly if it can hold onto 2nd place in terms of seats. It has also expressed a clear desire to work with other non-socialist parties, but at the same time a willingness to go-it-alone if winning more than seats than them. Whilst the Conservatives have, in one sense, lost their place as the dominant Conservative parliamentary group to the Progress Party, they remain the only party that has expressed a willingness to work with them in forming a government. This also appears to be an option reflected at a more local level, with 3 out of 4 Conservative members recently polled as being in favour of such a move.8 The Conservatives are also seen as potentially a ‘bridge’ between the Progress Party and its more traditional allies of Liberals and Christian Democrats (indeed the Christian Democrats have not ruled out supporting a Progress Party government in key votes, although this is balanced by an unwillingness to work with them in coalition).9

Conclusion

In any election of multiparty coalition politics, numbers are important in determining possible combinations for government. But, especially in this instance, personalities are also important; in the form of party leaderships’ being able to work together, being able to trust that the other person will help to bridge their part of the gap, and being able to find some kind of common ground upon which to build the foundation. It is the realization of each of these leaders complex preferences with regard to partners or groups they refuse to deal with which makes the waters so murky and the eventual government formation so difficult to predict.

It simply remains to be seen as to whether a new bridge will be crossed or whether the well travelled crossings will be the ones preferred by politicians and the Norwegian public alike.





(Photograph is of the current leaders of Norway's Socialist Left, Labour, and Centre parties, source: http://blog.norway.com/2009/08/13/norways-finance-minister-sees-signs-of-more-rapid-recovery/)

Surviving Political Earthquakes: The Future of the Japanese Liberal Democratic Party

With our eyes drawn to the recent political volcanoes across the Atlantic, the prospect that on Sunday the tectonic plates of politics in Asia-Pacific will shift radically is largely yet to receive much attention in our media. There is a real prospect for the first time in fifty years that in Japan the largely conservative ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) will lose power in an election to the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), a broad-based grouping of liberal and social democratic interests.1

Some would argue that the result on Sunday is far from certain. They may point to those factors which remain in the LDP government’s favour, amongst other things: the large electoral mountain for the DPJ; the likely need to form a coalition government (the LDP’s own coalition with New Komeito being relatively stable); the economy recently coming out of recession; the LDP retaining a strong party organizational capacity, bolstered by its long-established patron-client networks; and restrictive electoral laws, preventing the growth of grassroots movements, such as that which enabled Barack Obama’s victory, by limiting the use of the internet for campaigning. The LDP campaign has also focused on attacking the DPJ’s ability to deliver its elaborate spending promises without raising consumption tax. Many Social Democrat parties in the past have fallen foul of incumbent government charges of economic incompetence, not least Neil Kinnock’s Labour in 1992.

However, the saliency of these factors is debatable. Climbing the mountain is made easier by the LDP’s long tenure of office and a general desire for change, whilst the DPJ have also gained useful experience of working in coalition with left-wing parties in the upper House of Councillors for the past two years.2 Economic recovery is blighted by the LDP’s own record of economic mismanagement and recent spate of scandals which has led to the loss of several cabinet members, including the finance minister in early 2009 whilst the DPJ has sought to nullify charges of economic incompetence through the presentation of its detailed spending plans (for an alternative view see 3). In aiming to counter long-established networks and restrictive campaign laws, the DPJ has designed its manifesto to appeal to a wide constituency, ranging from such measures as providing an allowance to children of 312,000 Yen (about 2000 pounds) per annum, to reducing the lower rate of corporation tax from 18% to 11%, and has even adopted relatively centrist Foreign policy not that dissimilar to the incumbent government, but nevertheless still able to express their desires for a more Asia-centric focus and goals such as global nuclear disarmament.4  

Regardless of the electoral outcome, there seems little doubt that the LDP will have to work hard to recover from the crises that have battered it in recent years. Whether in government or opposition, I would suggest that there are three key foundations which the LDP could build upon in order to recover its strength and ability to govern: Trust grounded in Grassroots Organization; Strength grounded in Unifying Leadership; and Vision grounded in Concrete Policy.

Trust through Grassroots Organization
For the LDP to truly regain public trust, it should not only talk about or implement changes to the law over such issues as political donations and the ‘hereditary transfer’ of parliamentary seats. As a party which has stressed the organic nature of society and the need to promote values such as responsibility, the LDP must seize upon changing the very culture, root and branch, within itself, striving to reflect the more meritocratic principles of the society it has helped to fashion.

One possible way of doing this, and of reconnecting with the people, would be to use the LDP’s sizeable organizational capacity to establish a more open and democratic federalized structure, seeking the involvement of a far greater number of people at a local level. Mass party politics may be largely dead, but the involvement of the masses in politics is alive and growing as we have seen in recent movements from America and beyond. It would perhaps be best for the LDP to revisit its experiment of balloting party members in 1978, using such innovations as electronic or online balloting to overcome difficulties whether time-related or technical. 

A greater commitment to the decentralization of power in the country, before the LDP’s stated goal of 2017, is the twin goal of this reformed and federalized party structure, promoting peoples’ ability to shape policies that impact upon them at a local level, and also giving the grassroots of a federalized LDP the tools to gain added administrative experience at a sub-national level, boosting their capacity for governance in the future. 

Strength grounded in Unifying Leadership
To some extent the present leader, Taro Aso, has not helped the situation with his political gaffes and unpopular image created by such activities as dining out very frequently at expensive restaurants. However, blaming any loss solely on his leadership would make the same mistake that other conservative parties have made in the past, such as the UK Conservatives in 1997 who seemed to focus their blame on John Major at the expense of more reflection on the multiplicity of factors involved in their defeat. The LDP have to recognize that his weakness is reflective of a fundamental and contradictive dichotomy within the party as a whole: the post-Koizumi desire for a leader with widespread name recognition and popularity; versus the considerable power of long-established factional bases, which has led to the quick removal of leaders when they are seen to no longer be popular, thus limiting their ability to lead and creating an image of inconsistency at odds with LDP’s own principles of stability. 

To some extent, the reorganization of the LDP structure, with a leader enjoying the elected mandate of the grassroots would help to alleviate this problem. It must also be accompanied however with greater institutional resources for the leadership, particularly in terms of manpower and expertise to: manage and interact with the components of a complex party machine; deal with the demands of the mediatised age of 24 hour news; and develop well-thought out policies. At the same time, the particularly entrenched and smoke-filled back room world of intra-party politics serves to sometimes choke the respectable efforts of LDP leaders. Just as with the grassroots, a more formally organised and wider participation of different groups within the party, both in its internal governing structure and that of the country, would help to achieve a greater sense of unity and transparency, providing those within the party with greater avenues of opportunity for advancement of interests through institutional channels.5 

Vision grounded in Concrete Policy
It has been suggested by some that the LDP has run out of ideas, or is merely grasping at straws. Rather, I would suggest that the LDP has many ideas, some of them with potential, such as ring-fencing increased consumption tax to pay social security costs, but that it needs to refocus its priorities and concentrate on policies that make its vision of responsibility and economic growth a reality in the present. Much of the manifesto appears to concentrate on the long-term issues.6

This is perhaps reflective of the LDP’s own longevity in political office and is not in itself wrong. Rather, the LDP should also focus more on providing concrete details of how it would address the country’s immediate concerns, such as bringing forward its planned additional vocational training schemes from starting in 2013 to the present. It may also reinforce its credibility by tying more specific promises to how they will be paid for, perhaps emulating the UK Liberal Democrats past plan to put 1p on income tax to pay for increased investment in education, or the Norwegian Government’s pension fund, fed by oil taxation and grown through strategic investment.7
 

Conclusion
It may well be that even a period of DPJ government would be short-lived. It is more often than not governments who lose elections. Nevertheless, as we have witnessed relatively recently in Britain, an opposition can easily lose in the face of an unpopular government, if it does not provide the people with a credible alternative. Whoever leads the LDP after Taro Aso, there will almost certainly have to be changes to reverse their decline in government both on a national and sub-national level which in 2007 saw the loss of their majority in the upper house for the first time ever and recently also saw a historic victory for the DPJ in elections in Tokyo.8

It is probable that longstanding interests within the LDP will be resistant to any far reaching change, unless the defeat was to be especially heavy on Sunday. The death knell of political entities is sounded too often by the media, but it is always worth remembering the Canadian Conservative party which went into the 1993 election a longstanding party of government, divided, in a time of economic difficulty, with what has been regarded as a weak leadership, and was reduced from 169 to merely 2 seats.9 It is also worthwhile to remember that they returned to government (albeit a minority one) 13 years later. It may well be that opposition can bring new life to the Japanese Liberal Democrats, and a new political future to Japan and the world.