Maverick Shakes Up Staid Norwegian Politics

OSLO —  Blond and baby-faced, more cuddly than corpulent, Carl Hagen is a veritable cherub of a man. But when he levels his righteous gaze and begins to speak, the true believers jump to attention and shout “Amen.”

Hagen, 44, is everything a successful politician in this cold and proper country is not supposed to be. Loud, brash and charismatic, he is a self-acknowledged media hog who lets no photo opportunity pass. He says holding government office does not interest him at the moment; he would much rather be lobbing brickbats from the outside.

But in little more than a year Hagen has traveled from the political fringe to become the darling of as many as 24% of Norway’s voters, according to recent polls. That figure would put his Progress Party ahead of the traditionally second-place Conservatives, and close behind the governing Labor Party.

His ascent has been all the more surprising since he is an unabashed right-winger in a part of the West where socialism has planted its deepest roots. He is anti-immigration, anti-taxes and anti-big government. His heroes run from Adam Smith to Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman.

Hagen, said sociologist and political analyst Gudmund Hernes, “has found an empty part of the stage, and he has captured it. . . . He has become the foremost social critic in Norwegian politics, a role that used to be the prerogative of the left.”

Cradle-to-Grave Welfare

For most of this century, social democracy, high taxes, extensive public ownership and a cradle-to-grave welfare system have been the preferred elements of government in Scandinavia.

Sparsely populated and resource-rich, the Nordic countries have also shared their wealth with other nations and operated virtual open-door policies for immigrants and asylum-seekers.

But in recent years, Scandinavia has begun to bend under the weight of economic and social pressure. In Sweden, high wages and rising inflation threaten the balance books. Scandals have rocked the Social Democratic Party that has held power there for 50 of the last 56 years. The government is now under threat from a bloc of three conservative parties in elections due this month.

Although Denmark’s minority government coalition is nominally right of center, it is strongly committed to maintaining the welfare state. But servicing the country’s large national debt is costing each Danish citizen about $8,000 annually, and in elections last May, the right-wing Danish Progress Party made surprising gains on an anti-tax platform.

Both countries recently have adopted far more restrictive immigration policies, as public resentment over declining services has begun to focus on foreigners.

Shock of Drop in Oil Revenues

In Norway, the difficulties have been even more pronounced. The precipitous drop in North Sea oil revenues has sent shock waves through all sectors of the heavily state-run economy.

House prices soared, along with interest rates and inflation. For the first time in postwar memory, there are waiting lists for public hospitals, and old-age pensions have not been fully funded, a galling situation for the many Norwegians who are in the top tax bracket of 56%.

“There is a general feeling now that the system isn’t working,” said political editor Kjell Hanssen of Aftenposten, a leading Oslo daily.

One target of Norwegian public ire has been immigrants, whose numbers, although still relatively small, have increased as neighboring Denmark and Sweden have restricted immigration. Scenes of families from the Middle East and South America crowding Oslo’s Fornebu Airport seeking asylum last year were commonly featured in newspapers.

Norway enjoys nearly full employment, and no one claims that the immigrants are taking jobs away from Norwegians. But governmental benefits for the newcomers has become an acknowledged national embarrassment.

Free Immigrant Housing

Much publicity has been given to a government practice of housing immigrants, free of charge, in mountain resorts while their admissions are being processed. It was recently revealed, to the surprise of many here, that eligibility rules for government-financed home purchases put immigrants ahead of every category of Norwegians except the handicapped.

Enter Hagen. He’s tough on crime and immigrants. He’s for less bureaucracy, lower taxes, fewer state subsidies and more private sector participation in the supply of social services.

He wants better schools and stricter discipline for Norwegian youth. He promises to weed out the weak, the incompetent and the indecisive in government.

According to Hagen, Norway’s two major political blocs “have shown a demonstrable inability to solve problems concerning the Hanssens and the Olsens,” the Norwegian version of the Smiths and the Joneses.

“The only alternative left,” he says with typical boastfulness, “is me.”

Founded Progress Party

Hagen founded the Progress Party in 1973 after a stint at a British commercial college and several years as the Norwegian representative for a British sugar company. His party’s share of the vote never went above 5%, however.

All that began to change in local elections last December when the party received 12.2% of the votes cast. Surveys this summer indicate that it now has the support of 16% to 24% of the electorate, with national elections due next year.

In a June survey, more Norwegians said they favored the Progress Party’s policies to deal with taxes, the budget, bureaucracy and crime over those of Labor or the Conservatives.

Such findings infuriate Norway’s more conventional politicians, who charge that Hagen is causing serious political instability.

In fact, with the Labor and Conservative blocs evenly divided, the Progress Party’s two votes have proved crucial on a number of occasions.

Voted Against Higher Taxes

Twice in the last two years the party voted against higher taxation measures that ironically would have guaranteed Conservative control of the government. In short, Hagen has not endeared himself to either party.

“He is the kind of personality that frightens me,” said Kaci Kulman, deputy leader of the Conservative Party. “He is never in doubt, he has no questions. He’s always so extremely satisfied with himself. He scares me as a politician and as a human being.”

In addition, Kulman and others argue, Hagen brings out the worst in Norwegians. “To be fair to him,” she said, “he’s much less right-wing than (Jean-Marie) Le Pen,” the French rightist who advocates repatriation of immigrants. “Le Pen is a neo-Nazi, and Hagen definitely is not.

“But he is clearly trying to play on racism,” Kulman said. “He doesn’t call it that, but when you analyze it, that’s what it is.”

Hagen is unapologetic about either the style or the substance of his message. “I tell the farmers they get too much money” from the state, he said. “I tell the young people they get too much. They should give it to the old people. But I do it properly. If it means stepping on toes, I jump on them.”