The election, part II

Since I'm not applying for Norwegian citizenship, I won't be able to vote in national elections like this one, but I will be able to vote in local elections every four years starting in 2011. It's probably just as well that I don't vote here, since I've been having a really hard time figuring out which of the parties comes closest to representing my views. Almost every major party has some planks in its platform that I strongly agree with and others that make me think the leadership needs serious mental help.

To help voters navigate this maze of issues, several newspapers have set up online questionnaires that ask where you stand on the issues in the election, assign points based on your responses, and which then tell you which party has the highest point total and most closely represents your point of view. I took the one in BA tonight and it certainly didn't produce a clear winner:

Venstre (Left) - 19 points
Høyre (Right) - 18 points
KrF (Christian People's Party) - 16 points
FrP (Progress Party) - 16 points
Sp (Center) - 15 points
Ap (Labor) - 15 points
SV (Socialist Left) - 15 points
Rødt (Red Party) - 9 points

Ap leads the current coalition "red-green" government with Sp and SV, which are the three parties at the bottom of my list, but as you see there's not much spread. 19-18-16-16-15-15-15 is hardly decisive. I don't count Rødt, whose ideology is "revolutionary socialism," which is to say they're mad as hatters, although they did wind up with nine points here....

Maybe the questionnaire in Aftenposten will give me a more clear-cut answer.