Voter migration continues

Fully 43 per cent of Norwegian voters switched parties between the parliamentary elections in 1993 and 1997, including migration to and from the stay-at-home group. A look at voters who did cast their ballots in both elections shows that Socialist Left Party voters were the least faithful, while Christian Democrats had the highest percentage of stable voters. Just about every fifth Centre Party voter in 1993 voted for the Christian Democrats in 1997.

The voter crossovers from 1993 to 1997 confirm the impression that Norwegian politics is in the midst of a highly unstable period, compared to the period up to 1985. The highest voter shifts ever registered occurred in 1989 to 1993, when 44 per cent switched parties.

Nonetheless, it is interesting that voter migration has not increased, compared either to the period from 1993 to 1995 (county council elections), or to the period 1995 to 1997. If we look at the voting at all three elections including county council elections between 1993 and 1997, we see that 42 per cent of the voters voted for the same party at all of these elections. This indicates that basically the same voters crossed party lines from for instance 1993 to 1995 and from 1995 to 1997.

Increased stability for Progress Party

Concentrating only on the voters who did in fact vote in both 1993 and 1997, and excluding nonvoters, we see that 33 per cent switched parties between these two elections. This is also about the same level as in the previous period. Not unexpectedly, one of the big winners in the election, the Christian Democrats, had the highest percentage of stable voters in relation to the previous parliamentary election, with 82 per cent. Although the election's other success story, the Progress Party, had a significantly lower percentage of stable voters, with 64 per cent, voter stability was nevertheless considerably higher than the Progress Party has had in earlier elections. For example, in the 1993 election only 25 per cent of the Progress Party's earlier voters stayed with the party. Although the Labour Party recorded one of its worst elections since 1930, stability among 1993 voters was relatively high, with 77 per cent.

New Statistics

Election survey, 1997. Initial results.
The survey is conducted in connection with parliamentary elections and the results are published in the Weekly Bulletin of Statistics, among other places. For more information, contact: Bernt Aardal at the Institute for Social Research, tel. +47 22 55 45 10, e-mail: bernt.aardal@isaf.no.aardal, or Hanne Marit Teigum in Statistics Norway, tel. +47 21 09 46 62, e-mail: hte@ssb.no.

Weekly Bulletin issue no. 6, 1998