An End to Labor

"Champagne!" cried joyous guests in Oslo's Continental Hotel. Staid brokers on the stock exchange floor whooped happily. At last the socialist Labor Party was out of power after 30 years of nearly continuous rule. Out with Labor went tall, spare Einar Gerhardsen, 68, the Grand Old Man of Norwegian socialism and the country's Premier for as long as almost anybody could remember.

Defeat came at the hands of a Conservative, Liberal, Christian and Center Party coalition that had been trying for years to unseat Labor, to no avail.In 1961 it came tantalizingly close, winning a 74-74 tie in the Storting (Parliament), but Gerhardsen hung on to a razor's-edge majority with the help of two votes from the leftist Socialist Peoples Party. Two years ago he made a leftward gamble for fresh support: he promised four weeks' vacation for all workers and an old-age pension that. many believed, would put impossible strains on the budget.

The New Folks. During the campaign, the antisocialists pointed out that inflation has inched up 10% in the past two years, while the cost of housing, food and transportation has doubled since 1950. They took Labor to task for high taxes and an industrial-planning bureaucracy whose red-tape in efficiency has caused a series of scandals -- the latest breaking just before the election.

This time, the coalition took a certain style to the hustings. While Labor campaigned in the sedate old manner, the Liberal Party latched onto the vigorous techniques of Halfdan Hegtun, 41, a candidate who rolled up his sleeves to plunge into crowds of astonished voters in supermarkets, on country roadsides, even college campuses.

There were even some slogans -- the Norwegian version of "time for a change" -- to catch the imagination of the 200,000 young, first-time voters who were not at all sure that what had been good enough for their fathers was good enough for them.

The Old Folks. When the votes were in, enough antisocialists had registered their protests to give the coalition a ten-seat majority and firm control of the Storting for the next four years.

But though Gerhardsen was out, Labor was not crushed: with 68 of 150 seats, it is still the biggest single party.

What Norway's old people wanted to know was whether the new regime meant the ax for the traditional welfare program. No fear. The suddenly successful coalition promised to lower taxes by slashing huge food and housing subsidies and to curb inflation, probably, as a starter, by boosting the low lending rates of the state-owned banks. But it did not dare to suggest dismantling the structure of basic welfare benefits. As a matter of fact, listening to Liberal Leader Bent Roiseland, 63, the likely choice for Premier, one wondered why he ever bothered to run as an antisocialist. "The new coalition," said he, "does not intend to launch a revolution. We will listen to the opposition, and I am sure they must have some good advice after their long experience."

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