UPDATED: No other leader of Norway’s Conservative Party has served as prime minister longer than Erna Solberg, and she’s led the party itself for 21 years. Calls kept rising this week for her resignation, though, after the Conservatives lost badly in Monday’s Parliamentary election, and on Friday she announced she’ll step down as party leader but serve her new four-year term in Parliament.

Public opinion polls for Erna Solberg’s Conservative Party (Høyre) were already falling when the party held its national meeting in May. By the time the election campaign began in earnest this summer, they were even lower and did not recover before the Parliamentary election on Monday. PHOTO: Høyre/Hans Kristian Thorbjørnsen

Solberg spent most of the week avoiding the media glare after the Conservatives only won 14.6 percent of the vote on Monday. That’s down from 20.4 percent in the last election in 2021, and way down from 26.8 percent when she first won government power in 2013 and held on to it in 2017.

The recent election results meant the farther-right Progress Party could suddenly take over as the dominant party on Norway’s non-socialist side because of its best election result ever of 23.9 percent. That was more than double Progress’ performance just four years ago.

Both parties lost their bid for government power, though, since Labour won the most votes of all and can remain in office with support from other left-leaning parties. It was especially disappointing, perhaps even embarrassing, for Solberg. She has literally been able to throw her weight around in Norwegian politics for more than 20 years, and continued to enjoy deep respect within her party, if not from voters.

Commentators stress how the 64-year-old Solberg was also good at unifying the non-socialist side, whereas Progress’ leader Sylvi Listhaug is often viewed as polarizing. Now conservative side appears impotent, since the small non-socialist Liberal Party fared even worse than the Conservatives, winning just 3.6 percent of the vote. Solberg managed to keep a four-party conservative coalition (including the Christian Democrats) together during her first term as prime minister, but ultimately had trouble keeping Progress in the fold.

Critics now say she simply failed to “renew” the Conservatives, and sat too long in the leader’s seat. Solberg herself said at a press conference Friday afternoon that she now needs “to take responsibility” for the miserable election result. She’ll continue to lead the party until its next national meeting a few months from now, at which she has asked for a new leader to be elected.

She has no clear heir-apparent, and several prominent Conservatives MPs lost their seats in Parliament and her own. She hasn’t actively nurtured a successor, either, and refused to comment on candidates. Asked whether she should have stepped down earlier, to secure a better election result, Solberg simply replied “no.”

Erna Solberg seemed to be seeking help from above during a meeting with foreign correspondents in August. PHOTO: NewsinEnglish.no/Nina Berglund

Her biggest problem, though, may have been her husband. Not long after he’d spoiled her 60th birthday party during the pandemic in 2021, Sindre Finnes was found to have been buying and selling shares in companies that landed her in trouble again. Questions rose about any insider information he might have had, and whether she was impartial. When the huge volume of his transactions became known, alarms rang, not least within the Parliament’s disciplinary committee.

Her husband’s share trading also inspired a political parody of a film that opened in Norwegian cinemas just before the election. It’s difficult to assess whether the film reignited what became known as Sindre’s “scandal” but it certainly didn’t help. Audiences have literally been laughing out loud at Solberg’s expense. She flatly refused on Friday, once again, to comment on the so-called “Sindre-effect” on her and the party, and they remain married.

The question now is why the Conservative Party didn’t see a need to renew and revitalize itself earlier. Erna was its star (“Erna er stjerne” even rhymes in Norwegian), but neither she nor other party members seemed to realize how much she had faded.

Three names keep coming up when Conservative supporters and commentators are asked about likely candidates to succeed Solberg. Many favour former Foreign Minister Ine Eriksen Søreide, who’s known as smart, hard-working and always well-prepared, but it’s unclear whether she wants the job as either party leader or prime minister. She wouldn’t comment on the leadership issue, stressing only that “today is a quite sad day for many of us.”

One of Solberg’s two deputy leaders, Tina Bru, has already stepped aside as a potential leader, while the other, Henrik Asheim, may be interested but hasn’t stirred up much enthusiasm. Another strong candidate is Peter Frølich, best known for his unwavering enthusiasm for helping Ukraine and traveling there often with donated equipment. He’s also well-spoken and commands respect, but has no government experience.

One thing is clear: Norway’s Conservatives will be launching a full evaluation of what went wrong for them in the 2025 election, in the hopes of reinvigorating themselves well before the next election in 2029.

NewsinEnglish.no/Nina Berglund