Norway’s Radical Left Is Gaining Power
In Norway’s recent election, the radical Red Party doubled its vote share, helping the Labour Party toss the Conservatives from power. Two of Rødt’s new MPs speak to Jacobin about socialist strategy in Norway and building a workers’ party from the ground up.
Marie Sneve Martinussen (L) and Seher Aydar (R) are newly elected MPs for Norway’s Red Party. (Photos: Ihne Pedersen / Rødt)
Last week, voters in Norway kicked Erna Solberg’s Conservative government out of power. With recent temperatures in the country’s far north reaching record highs, widespread disgust at Solberg’s expansion of the oil industry played a key role. Fierce battles lie ahead over the largely untapped resources of the Barents Sea.
The social democratic Labour Party now looks set to govern in coalition with its previous partners, the agrarian Centre Party and the Socialist Left Party. But their rule will be complicated by the rise of the Red Party (Rødt).
Rødt emerged onto the Norwegian political scene almost fifteen years ago. An amalgamation of far-left groups, Rødt has an explicitly socialist program, and its leader, Bjørnar Moxnes, was elected to the Storting (parliament) in 2017. The charismatic Moxnes regularly clashed with the now deposed Prime Minister Solberg over workers’ rights and the environment, and Rødt’s national profile began to grow.
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