– I am critical of the way this team is put together, says Tove Karoline Knutsen. She is a former parliamentary representative and now a member of the Tromsø Labor Party. In a short time, Nidaros Social Democratic Forum, led by Trond Giske, has become the Labor Party’s largest local team with over 1,000 members. But many of those who have signed up come from completely different places than Trondheim. – So now there are 300-400 people outside Trondheim, in Horten, Drammen and Oslo, and have great power in local politics. They are probably good people, but they probably know very little about Trondheim and the challenges there. – Untidy – I think it’s a challenge for local democracy, says Knutsen, who is also critical of how Giske has recruited members to the local team. – Giske has gone out on social media and almost advertised for members for the team and said that you don’t need to live in Trondheim. A team has great power in local politics and it is the number of members that defines that power in decision-making bodies. She believes that the local team can become a problem in how politics in Trondheim is designed. – This local team is untidy. The number that is so large from outside the city helps to define the representation in decision-making bodies, and not least helps to give Trond Giske very great power in local politics in Trondheim. Tove Karoline Knutsen Photo: Jon Olav Nesvold / news – Completely silly – Forbidding people from joining Nidaros, people who have never been a member of politics and who have finally got involved, I think is completely silly. This is answered by Trond Giske, who thinks the criticism from Knutsen is strange. – We have recruited over a thousand members in the course of a year, a year in which the party has not exactly been in the wind. So I think it is very good that a thousand people who have mostly never been part of a party before have found their way into the Labor Party. Giske says that two-thirds of those who have joined the party are from Trondheim, and that the majority of them are from Trondheim. Thinks people must be heard Giske says that he has spoken personally to almost everyone who has joined the local team, and says that everyone has good reasons for becoming a member. – The reason why they have signed up is not to influence who is mayor in Trondheim or car regulation in the city centre. – It is because they like that we raise the social democratic values and ideology higher, and that we raise matters such as better pensions, electricity, making sure that people have finances in the insecure times we are in now. It is definitely not a specific Trondheim problem, and then they should be allowed to be heard. They get that in Nidaros. There may be change Nevertheless, it may be that Knutsen will receive support in his argument. In September, news reported that an Ap committee is in the process of assessing changes to the party statutes. – We will assess whether the members must have a geographical connection to the local team they are a part of, in order to be counted on when it comes to votes for annual meetings and nomination meetings locally as well as when choosing delegations to the national meetings, said committee leader Lubna Jaffery to news.
ttn-69
Critical of Trond Giske’s Labor Party in Trondheim Nidaros Sosialdemodratiske forening – news Trøndelag
