The 2023 Norwegian local elections were held on 11 September 2023: voters elected representatives to 357 municipal and 15 county councils, which are responsible for education, public transportation, healthcare, elderly care, waste disposal, the levy of certain taxes, and more. The election resulted in the Conservative Party of opposition leader Erna Solberg emerging as the largest party nationwide, taking just under 26% of the vote: this marked the first time since the 1924 Norwegian parliamentary election that the Conservatives had come in first place in a national election. It also brought to an end the Labour Party’s 96-year continuous streak as Norway’s largest political party, which began with the elections of 1927 and was a defining feature of Norway’s political landscape for most of the 20th and early 21st centuries. In addition, the right-wing Progress Party of Sylvi Listhaug regained its position as the country’s third largest party, after having fallen behind Trygve Slagsvold Vedum’s Centre Party in 2019. Overall, the vote was described as a realignment of the country’s political scene, with the centre-right bloc emerging victorious nationally with around 46% of the vote in the municipal elections, against approximately 44% for the red-green parties. A number of major cities previously controlled by the Labour Party and its allies, including the capital city of Oslo, changed hands in this election, electing new centre-right mayors. It is worth to mention that the election campaign was held in stark contrast to the development in the US and the rest of Europe: the absence of right-wing radical movements was striking.
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