Leader of Norway’s Labor Party Will Try to Form New Government

OSLO — Opposition Labor Party leader Gro Harlem Brundtland agreed Friday to try to form a new minority government after conservative Prime Minister Kare Willoch resigned.

Willoch, who handed his resignation to King Olaf V on Friday after losing a parliamentary vote of confidence, will head a caretaker government while Harlem Bruntland organizes her administration.

Willoch had urged the king to ask her to form the new government, but she had been reluctant because the socialist alliance she heads holds only 77 seats in Parliament, two short of a majority.

Brundtland, 47, agreed to form a new government after meeting twice with the king, who also discussed the situation with parliamentary leaders and the heads of Norway’s six political parties.

Loses by One Vote

Willoch on Wednesday had demanded a vote of confidence in the 157-seat Storting, Norway’s Parliament, after legislators were deadlocked in a debate over government austerity proposals aimed at counteracting dropping oil revenues. Willoch lost by a single vote, 78-79.

It was the first time in 23 years that a Norwegian government was toppled by losing a vote of confidence.

In Norway, the Parliament cannot be dissolved before regularly scheduled elections. The last elections were held in September and the next ones are scheduled for 1989.

Willoch’s coalition controls 78 votes in Parliament, one more than Brundtland’s socialist alliance. The remaining two seats are held by the small anti-tax Progress Party. Though conservative, it is not part of Willoch’s coalition and voted against him this week.

Legislators are required to cast their votes, making it impossible to adjust the political balance through abstentions.

Brundtland was toppled as prime minister by Willoch in the 1981 elections. Willoch, 57, had been the country’s longest-serving conservative prime minister.