The 36.9 ultimatum refers to the 1997 ultimatum by then-

Prime Minister of Norway The prime minister of Norway ( no, statsminister, which directly translates to "minister of state") is the head of government and chief executive of Norway. The prime minister and Cabinet (consisting of all the most senior government department ...

Thorbjørn Jagland Thorbjørn Jagland (born Thorbjørn Johansen; , 5 November 1950) is a Norwegian politician from the Labour Party. He served as the secretary general of the Council of Europe from 2009 to 2019. He served as the 32nd prime minister of Norway from ...

, that his government would resign if the

Norwegian Labour Party The Labour Party ( nb, Arbeiderpartiet; nn, Arbeidarpartiet; A/Ap; se, Bargiidbellodat), formerly The Norwegian Labour Party ( no, Det norske Arbeiderparti, DNA), is a social-democratic political party in Norway. It is positioned on the centr ...

gained less than 36.9% of the votes (the percentage gained by the Labour Party in 1993 under

Gro Harlem Brundtland Gro Brundtland (; born Gro Harlem, 20 April 1939) is a Norwegian politician ( Arbeiderpartiet), who served three terms as the 29th prime minister of Norway (1981, 1986–89, and 1990–96) and as the director-general of the World Health Organizat ...

) in the

parliamentary election A general election is a political voting election where generally all or most members of a given political body are chosen. These are usually held for a nation, state, or territory's primary legislative body, and are different from by-elections ( ...

, no matter what the parliamentary situation would be. As the Labour Party gained only 35%, Jagland's government resigned, even though his party won the election in the sense that it remained the biggest party and could have continued in government. Jagland's 36.9 ultimatum was subject to much public ridicule in 1997 and subsequent years, as well as strong criticism within his own party. When the Labour Party formed a government again in 2000,

Jens Stoltenberg Jens Stoltenberg (born 16 March 1959) is a Norwegian politician who has been serving as the 13th secretary general of NATO since 2014. A member of the Norwegian Labour Party, he previously served as the 34th prime minister of Norway from 2000 to ...

became Prime Minister with Jagland as Foreign Minister; Jens Stoltenberg also succeeded Jagland as leader of the Labour Party in 2002.

References

Political history of Norway Ultimata 1997 in Norway 1997 in politics Labour Party (Norway) {{Norway-hist-stub