But Oslo’s city council leader is completely convinced that he will win the election. Despite lousy measurements.
Will this autumn’s election be the end for Raymond Johansen as an Oslo politician if he loses to Eirik Lae Solberg? Photo: Tomm W. Christiansen
sea view
– We will win, says city councilor Raymond Johansen confidently.
– Are you sure?
– I am quite sure that we will pull this off for the third time.
Aftenposten meets him during Arendal Week, where he will debate his challenger Eirik Lae Solberg (H) three times during Wednesday.
This week, both Aftenposten and VG published opinion polls with historically poor figures for the Labor Party in Oslo.
Respectively, 15.2 per cent and 16.4 per cent state that they will vote for the Labor Party in the municipal elections. Aftenposten’s survey showed a clear majority on the bourgeois side.
Despite crisis figures in several surveys, the city council leader is determined that the red-green side will retain power after the election. Photo: Tomm W. Christiansen / Aftenposten
sea view
Gives up
Thus, the stage may be set for a change of power in the capital after the autumn’s local elections.
– If it happens? Do you want to continue as a full-time politician? Become a part-time politician?
– I’m betting everything on winning, he says, before taking a break to think:
– But it is not natural to continue if I am not allowed to continue as city council leader.
– Then you give up?
– It is quite natural to build up others until the election in 2027. But I have a feeling that we will manage this.
lady magnet
Johansen is faced with a somewhat bittersweet paradox. Because while the party he fronts is in a rapid downward spiral, he is personally far more popular than his opponent Eirik Lae Solberg (H).
35 percent answer that they still want Johansen as city council leader in Oslo. Only 22 percent want Solberg.
– It’s nice, but a rather meager consolation, observes Johansen.
At the same time, he emphasizes:
– After governing for eight years, I could have had a very bad rating. I haven’t, and I’m very proud of that. It provides inner motivation and self-confidence, he says.
And there is one group in particular that wants Johansen: the women. Almost three times as many women – 39 per cent – want Johansen than Solberg, who only has 14 per cent support among women.
– Are you a lady magnet?
Here the city council leader bursts into prolonged and loud laughter. Am I? he has to ask his chief of staff Eileen Fugelsnes, who nods and confirms dryly:
– Yes that’s him.
– Now it is the case that women have traditionally had a greater focus on social issues and are traditionally somewhat more radical than men, so it may have worked out there, adds Johansen modestly.
Is Raymond a lady magnet? The numbers may indicate that. Photo: Tomm W. Christiansen / Aftenposten
sea view
Halve support
Since the snap election in 2015, when the Labor Party received 32 percent of the vote, support has more than halved according to Aftenposten’s opinion poll.
– Are you the right person to lead the Labor Party in the city council when we see this downward spiral?
– Yes, I am. I have been elected unanimously and strongly encouraged to run.
For me as a person, I do not perceive that so many questions are asked.
But why is Oslo Ap doing so badly? Has the party given too much power to the city council partners MDG and SV, so that politics has become too radical and too green for the regular Ap voter?
– We have been behind a number of tough policies related to the environment and related to cars. And it has not always been as popular in some of our traditional core areas, notes Johansen.
In the 2019 election, the party lost heavily to the Toll Party (now the People’s Party) in Labor strongholds such as Groruddalen. Before the summer, even the Conservative Party was bigger than the Labor Party in the “valley”.
– It is a price we have paid that I believe has been worth it, says Johansen.
He believes it is a misunderstanding that the MDGs have dragged Ap too far in a green direction. For Oslo Ap, the tough line against the car and for the climate and the environment has been a desired policy. Over the years, the Oslo Party had “greened” itself, he believes.
While Ap falls, SV grows, and MDG remains stable. Johansen believes that it is really “bloody unfair” that Labor does not get paid for an aggressive environmental policy.
– As a traditional working-class and industrial party, we are the ones who have taken the biggest risks and been the most daring, but we don’t get the credit, he says.
2023-08-16 17:37:09
#Raymond #Johansen #natural #continue #allowed #continue #city #council #leader
