Norway's general election promised to be a tight race yesterday between the governing center-right coalition and a left-leaning opposition bloc that wants to shift spending of the Nordic nation's oil wealth from tax relief to fixing cracks in the welfare system.
Conflicting poll results set the stage for a close vote that could leave small fringe parties tipping the scale in either direction.
Most polling stations opened at 9am yesterday and were scheduled to close at 8pm.
Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik cast an early vote Sunday in his home district of Kolbotn.
Bondevik, a Christian Democrat who has led a three-party coalition government since 2001, has campaigned on promises of further reducing taxes while improving health care and education. The opposition's front man, Labor party leader Jens Stoltenberg, has ruled out tax cuts and called for more welfare spending.
The government has presided over four years of unprecedented prosperity in the country of 4.6 million, and the nation's wealth has been boosted by a windfall from record high oil prices.
Debate has raged over how to use the oil income, with the far-right populist Party of Progress saying Norway should tap into the 1.2 trillion kroner (US$192 billion) fund where it invests surplus oil revenue. Offshore oil platforms have made Norway the world's third-largest oil exporter, after Saudi Arabia and Russia.
Two polls published before early voting began in a few districts Sunday gave the opposition bloc, the so-called Red-Green alliance, a majority of seats in Parliament, while another said Bondevik's coalition would control the assembly after yesterday's election.
Even if the center-right parties win a majority, it is not clear whether the current government can stay in office, as Party of Progress leader Carl Hagen has said he would not accept Bondevik as prime minister after the election.
Bondevik's minority government of Conservatives, Christian Democrats and Liberals took power four years ago with the support of Hagen's party, but has refused it Cabinet posts or any other formal alliance.
Labor, long Norway's dominant party, hopes to oust the government without Hagen's help, and for the first time has formed a bloc with the agrarian Center Party and the Socialist Left.
Throughout the campaign, polls have given the sides nearly equal support in the race for 169 parliamentary seats, where either side needs at least 85 seats for a majority.
"We say that every vote counts in every election, but it is perhaps more true in this election than in any other election, because it is such an even race," Stoltenberg, the Labor leader and former prime minister, told public broadcaster NRK.
A poll in Norway's largest newspaper, Verdens Gang, on Sunday predicted the center-right coalition would get 87 seats, compared with 80 seats for the Labor-led bloc.
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