COPENHAGEN, Sept. 13 (Xinhua) -- A changing of the guard at the highest level of Norwegian politics was forecasted following the closing of voting stations for the Parliamentary Election on Monday.
The three candidates to become Norway's next prime minister attend a debate in Oslo. (Photo: Agencies)
The opposition coalition led by the Labor Party look set to win 88 in the 169-seat Storting (parliament), according to the projection published by the Norwegian Directorate of Elections based on a count of 90 percent of the votes.
The prediction would mean Erna Solberg, leader of the Conservative Party and the ruling bourgeois coalition, would have to step down as prime minister, after an eight-year tenure.
Solberg has called Labor Party's Jonas Gahr Store and congratulated him on the victory, according to the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten.
The forecast showed a major decline for the bourgeois bloc, which only stands to get 64 seats.
According to another forecast on Norwegian news channel TV2, Store is going to form a majority government together with the Socialist Left Party and the Central Party.
Norway holds the parliamentary election every four years.
