Norway's center-right parties set to stay in power

Norway's four center-right parties led by Prime Minister Erna Solberg's Conservative Party have retained their majority in the new parliament that would enable them to stay in power, an official projection of election results showed on early Tuesday.

The ruling Conservative Party and Progress Party and their allies, the Christian Democratic Party and the Liberal Party, won 89 seats in the 169-seat parliament, according to the projection published by the Norwegian Directorate of Elections based on a count of 94.8 percent of the votes.

Solberg was expected to retain the post of prime minister in the next four years, analysts said.

Meanwhile, the Labor Party still maintained its position as the largest political party in Norway with 27.4 percent support, but it and other parties on the left did not have enough votes to form a majority in the parliament.

Labor leader Jonas Gahr Store has acknowledged defeat in Monday's parliamentary election.

"Our goal was to give Norway a new government. We knew it would be a tough task," Store told his supporters. "But it seems now it just did not happen."

A total of 4,437 candidates from 24 political parties or groups had competed for the 169 seats in the Norwegian parliament.

Norway holds the parliamentary election every four years. The Election Day, decided by the king, normally falls on the second or the third Monday in September of the election year.