Former Prime Minister Kåre Willoch (93) influenced Norwegian politics for over 60 years and introduced reforms that changed the country.
As Prime Minister (1981–1986), Willoch was the central driving force behind the right-wing wave.
He has been a parliamentary representative, minister in two governments, secretary general and party leader in the Conservative Party. He was also the Conservative parliamentary leader from 1970 to 1981.
“Kåre Willoch is a remarkable combination of enormous knowledge, lived political life and future-oriented commitment,” commentator Harald Stanghelle wrote about the 90th anniversary in 2018.
Even three decades after he resigned as prime minister, he was fiercely engaged.
In recent years, he marked himself with repeated calls for improvement in the conditions of families with children, a settlement with what he referred to as “national egoism” and a climate warning that in a week was seen by over a million on Facebook.
– Unusual abilities
Willoch was born in Oslo on October 3, 1928.
After graduating from Ullern Gymnasium in 1947, he studied social economics at the University of Oslo and became a cand.oecon. 1953
During his professional career, he was secretary of the Norwegian Shipowners’ Association 1951–52 and consultant to the Norwegian Industrial Association 1954–63. From 1952 he was a member of Oslo City Council, and in 1957 he was elected to the Storting.
“He had very early shown exceptional abilities as a politician, and in a short time he came to mark the work and debates in the Storting,” writes Harald Stanghelle in Norwegian biographical lexicon.
For Willoch, the ambition had been to enter the Storting.
– The Labor Party had a completely dominant position of power. Reaching the top for us young conservatives in the first years after the war seemed quite distant, Willoch said in the NRK series “When we ruled the country”.
The Kings Bay accident on Svalbard in 1962 claimed 21 lives, and led to the resignation of the Labor government led by Einar Gerhardsen.
Willoch joined John Lyng’s short-lived bourgeois coalition government in August-September 1963. He was head of the Ministry of Trade and Shipping, and returned as head of the same ministry two years later. Both times he was the youngest minister in the government.
He was already at that time the Conservatives’ strong man and influenced the party’s positions in the government, Stanghelle believes.
In the 1977 election, Willoch was 50 votes away from becoming prime minister.
– We will win next time, Willoch told Dagbladet.
It turned out to be true.
Transforming society
The 1981 Storting election was a great success for the Conservatives, and Kåre Willoch formed the country’s first pure Conservative government since 1928. In 1983, the Christian People’s Party and the Center Party joined the government.
This was a period of transition from Norway from the Labor Party’s community solutions to fewer regulations and more individualism.
Much of what we take for granted today was started during Willoch’s reign.
Norwegians got to experience shops open at night and could hear pop music on local radio instead of tuning in to Radio Luxembourg.
The broadcasting monopoly was abolished, the housing market was deregulated and the shops’ opening hours could be extended.
– An economic policy had been pursued that slowed economic growth. It was very difficult for many small and medium-sized businesses, Willoch said of his predecessors.
Society was perceived as old-fashioned and cumbersome.
During Willoch’s reign, 150 public councils and committees were dissolved. A number of new laws were introduced.
Kåre Willoch’s life motto is “everything in moderation”, but he did not spare the powder when he modernized Norway in the 80s. The result was an economic boom and a boom, before the backlash sent the country into crisis and Gro Harlem Brundtland had to take over government offices.
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Opened the housing market
Buying and selling a home could now take place in an open market without the state determining the price.
– I want to give Willoch the credit for the reforms that in my opinion were overdue, said Thorbjørn Jagland when the former prime ministers met.
Although the 1980s were marked by the ideological struggle between the Labor Party and the Conservatives, Willoch’s modernization of Norway has been continued by various governments in the years since.
– I would describe him as a strong leader who created change in Norwegian society, said former Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik.
“Gro and Kåre”
The 1980s were also a period of legendary debates between the main opponents Kåre Willoch and Gro Harlem Brundtland. The sharp TV debates were for the first time considered entertainment.
– He had great self-confidence and he demonstrated that. He always called me “Mrs. Brundtland” in the debates, and I experienced that as arrogance from a man who spoke from top to bottom to a younger woman, told Gro Harlem Brundtland in the TV series «When we ruled the country».
– I had no intention of annoying anyone. That is completely wrong, Willoch replied in the program.
He thought it was a matter of course to say “madam” when he started in politics.
In February 1981, Gro Harlem Brundtland was appointed Norway’s first female Prime Minister.
After a few months as the new minister, Brundtland was thrown into an election campaign where the main opponent was Conservative leader Kåre Willoch, who had then been in politics for 25 years.
In 1981, Brundtland lost the election and had to relinquish his chairmanship to Willoch.
– You were very hard in the debates, Brundtland said over the dinner table in “When we ruled the country”.
– Yes, I do not want to correct it in any way, Willoch chuckled.
Former Prime Minister Erna Solberg described Willoch’s style as friendly, sharp and demanding.
– A surgical debater, said Jens Stoltenberg.
Yapping time
The result of Willoch’s policy was an economic boom. Private consumption doubled during his reign. Banks lent more money than ever before.
Consumption was in sharp contrast to Willoch’s life motto “everything in moderation”.
In retrospect, Willoch and Brundtland completely disagreed on who was to blame for the yapping era and the financial crisis that followed.
Brundtland believes that the government’s policy led to over-consumption, while Willoch claimed that they would have managed to avoid a financial crisis if the Storting had agreed on the proposals for tightening.
DISCONNECTED IN 1986: The Willoch government raises cabinet questions in the Storting.
Photo: Henrik Laurvik / NTB scanpix
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When oil prices fell sharply in the spring of 1986, the government presented a austerity package to save the economy.
Willoch asked cabinet questions, however The Progress Party agreed with the Labor Party against the proposal to increase the petrol tax, and the government was overthrown.
Disclosure
It attracted considerable attention when it was revealed in 1982 that Willoch, as a parliamentary representative, also received salaries from his former employers, the Norwegian Shipowners’ Association and later the Norwegian Industry Association.
Willoch defended the scheme, he had not done anything against the law or regulations.
The rules were different then, but the interplay between private interests and public office was still problematic.
On the basis of this case, the Presidency of the Storting decided to establish a voluntary and publicly available registration scheme in 1990.
Social debater
In 1989, Kåre Willoch left the Storting after more than 30 years to become county governor in Oslo and Akershus, a position he held until he fell before the age limit in 1998.
In addition to being an active public debater, he has as a pensioner been director of Fridtjof Nansen’s Institute 1999–2001 and chairman of the board of NRK 1998–2000.
In recent years, Willoch has been an active public debater. One of the topics he has been particularly interested in is the situation of the Palestinians.
From having a pro-Israel view like the rest of the party, Willoch became a powerful advocate for the Palestinian cause. A trip with the Foreign Affairs and Constitution Committee to the Middle East in 1977 is said to have given Willoch a kind of conversion.
Willoch led an pro-Israel governing coalition, but his own views on the conflict were already changing.
– Israel is heading for disaster, also for itself, said Willoch to Dagsavisen in 2018.
Willoch has previously called Norwegian foreign policy towards Israel “an escape from reality”.
In 2011, he received a so-called “Palestinian passport” from the Palestinian leadership for his many years of commitment to their cause.
Willoch leaves behind his wife Anne Marie.
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