NORWAY: Labor Again

For ten days after the death of King Haakon VII all electioneering halted in the campaign for Norway’s Storting. But the interval of mourning had no effect on the voting. Most Norwegians had made up their minds 22 years ago.

It was back in 1935 that the Labor Party came to power in a time of depression and unemployment with a promise of jobs and social benefits for all. In each of the four elections that followed—1936, 1945, 1949 and 1953—Labor and the Welfare State won. This year the opposition parties campaigned again against high taxes, socialist payouts and inflation —and lost. Labor captured 78 seats to 72 for the combined opposition. The Communists, still suffering from the backlash of Hungary, lost two of their three seats, including one from the Soviet-border region in the arctic north, and dropped from 90,000 to 60,000 votes.