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Norway’s ruling centre-left government retained power as voters in the rich Nordic country backed a safe pair of hands in a tense security environment after neighbouring Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the re-election of US President Donald Trump.

Centre-left parties led by Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre’s Labour won 88 seats in parliamentary elections, while centre-right opposition groups secured 81, with almost all votes counted on Monday night.

The biggest gainer in the elections was the opposition, populist Progress party, which doubled its vote share to 24 per cent, its best result. But Progress missed out on power because of the poor performance of smaller centre-right parties.

Norway’s Labour party is one of the most formidable forces in European politics, having come in first place in every parliamentary election for more than 100 years.

But its dominant status has been threatened by the centre-right in recent years, in particular by the anti-EU and anti-immigrant Progress party and the mainstream Conservatives.

Led by Støre, Labour looked down and out in opinion polls a year ago after leading an unpopular coalition with the rural Centre party.

But the re-election of Trump as US president, the dumping of the Centre party from Norway’s government, and the return to frontline domestic politics of former head of Nato and ex-prime minister Jens Stoltenberg, revitalised the centre-left. Labour gained 28 per cent of votes cast, up slightly compared with 2021.

“We knew it would be tough, and it was tough,” said Støre, pointing to the Covid-19 pandemic, the energy crisis, wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and trade tensions during his time in government. To chants of “four new years”, he added: “We steered the ship safely.”

The vote in the rich Nordic country centred on economic issues such as Norway’s status as one of only a few nations in the world to have a wealth tax and whether private companies should take a bigger role in providing public services.

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The country’s next government will have difficult decisions to take with the EU, not least whether to renew two electricity interconnectors with Denmark.

Labour and the Conservatives are in favour of EU membership but do not want a referendum right now for fear of it overshadowing all other issues.

Espen Barth Eide, Norway’s foreign minister, told the Financial Times: “I always felt that being re-elected would be even better than being elected because you did your exam and you were voted in again . . . Steady hands in domestic policy and foreign policy is particularly important when we have the world as it is.”

The Conservatives, led by former prime minister Erna Solberg, suffered a big drop in support, in part because of a scandal involving her husband trading in shares while she was in power.

Simen Velle, head of the youth wing of Progress, which will now be the main opposition party, said: “A lot of Norwegians want a new path. We need to cut taxes, we need to cut spending. Public spending in Norway is out of control.”