Norway's Prime Minister to Step Down

[Judi Lynn]

Norway's Prime Minister to Step Down
Tuesday September 13, 2005 5:46 PM

By DOUG MELLGREN

Associated Press Writer

OSLO, Norway (AP) - Norway's prime minister, who presided over four years of unprecedented prosperity fueled by high oil prices, said Tuesday he will resign after a left-wing opposition bloc won parliamentary elections.

Kjell Magne Bondevik, a Christian Democrat, said his government would step down Oct. 14 if Jens Stoltenberg's Red-Green alliance had formed a government by then.

With 99.5 percent of the votes from Monday's election counted, official results showed Stoltenberg's three-party bloc won 87 seats in the 169-member assembly, enough to oust the center-right government of Bondevik.

Stoltenberg's Labor Party won 61 seats, a gain of 18 from the 2001 elections. Coalition partners Socialist Left and the agrarian Center Party won 15 and 11 seats, respectively.
(snip/...)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5275454,00.html

[Frederik]

1. Leftist Coalition Wins

Leftist Coalition Seems to Be the Winner in Norway's Election

BY WALTER GIBBS
Published: September 13, 2005
OSLO, Sept. 12 - By a narrow margin, Norwegian voters appeared Monday to have transferred power from their center-right government to a left-wing coalition headed by the Labor Party leader, Jens Stoltenberg.

Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik refrained from conceding defeat, but with more than 90 percent of the vote counted, most analysts agreed that Mr. Stoltenberg's "red-green alliance" of the Labor Party, Socialist Left Party and Center Party had won a slim parliamentary majority, ending four years of weak minority rule under Mr. Bondevik.

"I'm finally ready to call it," Frank Aarebrot, a University of Bergen election analyst, said at 11:30 p.m. "The red-green wins it."

A new government here could prove a minor irritant to the Bush administration.

...

Under Mr. Bondevik's fragile coalition of Christian Democrats, Conservatives and Liberals, Norway experienced a surge in prosperity, with the stock market tripling since early 2003 on the strength of oil exports. Interest rates fell sharply, personal incomes rose and the United Nations Development Program designated Norway the best country in the world in which to live.

But letting the good times roll is not really the Scandinavian way. Even at the cost of moderately higher taxes, most Norwegians on Monday seemed intent on protecting or expanding generous sick-leave, pregnancy-leave and job-security policies along with subsidized day care and free college tuition.

Like Mr. Stoltenberg, Mr. Bondevik campaigned as a champion of social spending, but his commitment to keeping interest rates low and cutting future taxes made him seem the guardian of a business-friendly status quo. He also lost votes to the far right Progress Party, which became Norway's second-largest party on Monday. It demanded even larger tax cuts than Mr. Bondevik was willing to countenance and proposed balancing the budget by raiding an oil-revenue fund set up to serve future generations.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/13/international/europe/13norway.html

Norway votes to spend oil riches on welfare state
By Stephen Castle, Europe Correspondent
Published: 13 September 2005

Even before the latest surge in oil prices, Norway was ranked for five consecutive years by the United Nations as the best place to live in the world. Yet its low unemployment and a much-envied social security system have not stopped the issue of how much the government spends from dominating debate in the world's third-largest oil exporter.

The Labour Party leader, Jens Stoltenberg, a 46-year-old economist who briefly served as Prime Minster between 2000 and 2001, looked set to regain power in a narrow victory, having fought a campaign which held that more could be done to eliminate the country's remaining social problems.

...

The alliance wants to spend more oil cash on jobs, care for the elderly and education and a key plank of the parties campaign was that the tax cuts introduced by Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik have served only to help the rich.

In contrast, the centre-right governing coalition, led by Mr Bondevik, a 58-year-old Lutheran clergyman, had fought on a platform of lowering taxes.

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article312192.ece

[Frederik]

2. Incoming prime minister Stoltenberg

has also promised to immediately withdraw Norway's 10 officers from Iraq. The Socialist Left Party is also anti-Nato, but the new coalition will not withdraw Norway's membership in the Atlantic alliance. They will, however, demand to be treated as an "equal partner" by the United States. Norway has been a close ally of the US since World War II, and the outgoing Conservative defense minister is a friend and admirer of Donald Rumsfeld, whom she has described as "extremely intelligent". Rummy's relationship with the next defense minister won't be as warm and fuzzy.


The leaders of Norway's three left-wing parties. Incoming prime minister Stoltenberg in the middle.

[Frederik]

3. Outgoing prime minister Bondevik

is a friend of president Bush and a member of "The Fellowship", the secretive Christian organization with ties to the CIA and the Bushes.

[Frederik]

4. The Fellowship

a.k.a. The Family

www.alternet.org/story/16167/

In April, the AP broke the story that six U.S. congressmen were paying the bargain rate of $600 a month each to live together in a swanky DC townhouse owned by a secretive fundamentalist Christian group known as the Fellowship or the Foundation. Many, understandably, were curious. Who is this organization, and what is its agenda?

The group, the AP reported, is best known for holding the annual National Prayer Breakfast at the White House, which offers scores of national and international heavy hitters the opportunity to praise God in close proximity to the President. In the article, the congressmen boarding at the house denied owing any allegiance to the group, and several professed ignorance of even the most basic facts about the organization. Little else was reported about the group's history, motives or backers.

There is a reason for that. The Fellowship is one of the most secretive, and most powerful, religious organizations in the country. Its connections reach to the highest levels of the U.S. government and include ties to the CIA and numerous current and past dictators around the world.
...

Regular prayer groups have met in the Pentagon and at the Department of Defense, and the Family has traditionally fostered strong ties with businessmen in the oil and aerospace industries. The Family maintains a closely guarded database of its associates, but it issues no cards and collects no official dues. Members are asked not to speak about the group or its activities. The organization has operated under many guises, some active, some defunct: National Committee for Christian Leadership, International Christian Leadership, the National Leadership Council, Fellowship House, the Fellowship Foundation, the National Fellowship Council, the International Foundation. These groups are intended to draw attention away from the Family, and to prevent it from becoming, in the words of one of the Family's leaders, "a target for misunderstanding."