SWINGING THE WHIP: In a new book, Thorbjørn Berntsen speaks “straight from the liver”. The picture is from 2017. Photo: Lise Åserud / NTB
Labor leader Jonas Gahr Støre has no political project, according to former Labor deputy leader Thorbjørn Berntsen (88). In a recent book, he launches four possible successors.
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The book is called “What happened – and what happens?”, and is the result of conversations with Berntsen and the author, SV politician and historian Hans Olav Lahlum.
According to the author, the book came about after Thorbjørn Berntsen contacted him and suggested that they should write a book together.
“Thorbjørn Berntsen wanted to bring out his history and his view of both past events and the current situation”, writes Lahlum in the foreword.
Strange bird
In the talks with Lahum, super-veteran Berntsen unleashes on the incumbent leadership in Ap. The backdrop is Ap’s crisis-low support in the local elections earlier this autumn, when the party got 21.6 per cent, and became the second largest party after the Conservative Party for the first time in 99 years.
This spring he wrote on Facebook that he wanted a new party leader. In the book, he lashes out at Støre again.
Bentsen describes Støre as a man from a bourgeois rich family who had never been part of the AUF, and as a “stranger to the movement when he appeared as a minister” in 2005.
“After two years with Jonas as prime minister, our party is down to 16-17 per cent in parliamentary polls. Jonas has no political project. What kind of clout do we get to challenge the capital elite when we have members of that elite in our own party leadership?” asks Berntsen in a quote in the book.
Støre received criticism at an internal Ap meeting: – A waiting room
Possible heirs
But he goes back on the demand that Støre must be replaced:
“He has been red-faced and stood steady through the gusts of wind as prime minister, and I don’t think we have anyone who could fill that role better here and now,” adds Berntsen.
But the Ap veteran with 20 years in the Storting and seven years as Minister of Environmental Protection has also pointed to possible successors.
He mentions the deputy leaders Tonje Brenna and Jan Kristian Vestre, plus two ministers: Kari Nessa Nordtun and Terje Aasland.
Not even the party secretary escapes:
“Unfortunately, Kjersti Stenseng has been far too anonymous and cautious, and now still seems not to have realized the seriousness of the situation. I would have liked to have Jonas Bals from LO in there instead”, is the message from Thorbjørn Berntsen.
Also read: Trond Giske on the Ap crisis and a possible comeback
Cheating
He is also annoyed by the Conservative Party:
“It is pretty damning that we narrowly lose power in Oslo and several other large cities, due to cheating on the part of the Conservatives! That the party leader’s spouse has engaged in share trading in the millions from the prime minister’s residence, and that information about it is withheld until just after the election… It is a democratic problem, after all! We cannot accept that it is like this here in Norway,” says Berntsen in the book.
Berntsen was the trade union leader who became a parliamentary representative, Labor deputy leader and minister of environmental protection in Gro Harlem Brundtland’s government.
Lahlum has previously, among other things, written biographies about Ap’s legendary party secretary Haakon Lie and about former party leader Reiulf Steen.
Published:
Published: 10.11.23 at 00:01
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2023-11-09 23:02:27
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