On the same evening that Trond Giske came up with a response to the members’ row in the party at an emergency meeting of his local team, the national board of Ap unanimously agreed to change the statutes.
Initially, it was expected that the case would be forwarded to the national board meeting for consideration on Wednesday, but they instead chose to deal with it on merits on Tuesday.
– We presented the central board’s recommendation, and had a discussion about it. The National Board gave its full support to it, and made a unanimous decision, says party secretary Kjersti Stenseng to VG.
That same evening, Giske strongly objected to the proposed bylaw changes at an emergency meeting of his local team, Nidaro’s Social Democratic Forum.
The meeting in the local team was still going on when Stenseng informed VG that the national board had made a decision.
Limits Giske’s power
Some parties have statutes that mean you can only be a member where you live.
But until now, people have been able to join Ap wherever they want: If you live in Sandefjord, you can become a member of Nidaros and have full rights – and your membership counts when the Trønder delegates to the national meeting of Ap are to be elected.
The central board of Ap has agreed to a change in the articles of association which means that a member from Sandefjord will still be able to be a member of Nidaros. But the person concerned’s membership must count for Vestfold and Telemark when delegates to the Labor party national meeting are to be elected.
- Therefore, this is controversial: The Ap team someone is a member of gets representation for them at the annual meeting of the municipality, the county team, the representative council and the national meeting of Ap.
- Giske’s local team has grown to become Aps’ largest – but half of the members come from other parts of the country. Therefore, such a change will give Giske’s local association less power.
Come up with an answer
At the meeting in Nidaro’s social democratic forum on Tuesday evening, Giske made the following proposal as equivalent to the changes the party has discussed:
He believes that if you are a member somewhere other than where you live, you should not be counted in the delegate calculation for municipal or county teams. But he still wants you to be able to count towards the representation of the team you have signed up for nationally, if you so choose.
– I believe that Nidaros should be clear and clear that people from outside should not govern or influence a municipality or a county they do not live in. I think that is perfectly fine for the members of Nidaros. But if they want to influence the electricity policy and that the promises to the pensioners must be kept, that doesn’t happen in Trondheim, it happens nationally, and they actually live there, said Trond Giske at the meeting.
To VG, Stenseng denies that this is a new compromise:
– We were clear about that. We have been concerned that you should have a consistent representation, it is very little in principle that you should not count locally in the county, but count nationally.
It is the national meeting of Ap in May that will finally vote on how the statutes should be.
The model that the central board advocated, and which the national board has now fully endorsed, is the model the leader of Trøndelag Ap, Minister of Health Ingvild Kjerkol, proposed in VG in January.
