Left alliance claims election victory
A Norwegian Red-Green alliance led by former Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, who defeated the centre-right government in an election, plans to spend more of the nation’s oil wealth on welfare.
The Labour leader said his priorities would be jobs, schools and care for the elderly, when questioned on breakfast television. Norwegian daily Dagbladet hailed 46-year-old Stoltenberg as “the Conqueror” and another newspaper, Aftenposte, proclaimed a “Change of Power”. But outgoing Prime Minister, Kjell Magne Bondevik, will stay on as caretaker leader until parliament opens in mid-October.
“We don’t have a good answer,” said 58-year-old Bondevik, when asked why voters had deserted his tax cutting government of the Christian People’s Party, Conservatives and Liberals. United Nations surveys have consistently rated Norway as the best place in the world to live every year since Bondevik took power in 2001.
