– Several in the top management must assess their positions. Nobody should feel safe and action must be taken, says Fossmo. The Ringebu mayor has replied to an e-mail from news, in which he advocates that neither deputy leader Bjørnar Skjæran nor party secretary Kjersti Stenseng should continue after the national meeting in May. – Both should be replaced. It needs a renewal. This is shown by the election polls. It is the management that fronts our policy and that Ap people are not satisfied with, says Fossmo. CLEAR SPEECH: Mayor Arne Fossmo in Ringebu believes there needs to be renewal at the top of the Labor Party and hopes both Hadia Tajik and Tonje Brenna will be elected to the leadership. Photo: Lars Erik Skrefsrud / news He also believes party leader Jonas Gahr Støre should consider his position. – Jonas as Prime Minister must also assess his position as the supreme leader. Whether he is the right person to continue will be up to the delegates at the national meeting. I support whoever is elected, he insists. Earlier in the week, the board of Oslo Arbeiderparti gave a clear message to the election committee, which is chaired by LO leader Peggy Hessen Følsvik. – Oslo Ap wants changes in the party leadership and the central board, like several other county parties, said county secretary Øyvind Slåke to news. And Dagbladet wrote yesterday about former Ap deputy leader and minister Thorbjørn Berntsen, who in a closed online forum for Ap people advocated that the changes also include the party leader himself. – There are many indications that the orchestra should get a new conductor, as he put it. Fossmo puts it this way: – It is the management’s main responsibility to build trust among the people. We all know that Labor entered a difficult time with the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, but it is the policy we are measured by and it is not good enough for most people and the business world as of today. Will have Tajik and Brenna Fossmo ran a shop in Fåvang before he became mayor after something of an electoral landslide in 2015. In two periods, Ap has had a clear majority in Ringebu, but now he fears that the party’s poor form at national level will affect support in the autumn elections. – We have to take action, he says. The fact that Kjersti Stenseng is from Kvam in Nord-Fron, half an hour’s drive from Ringebu, is secondary to Arne Fossmo’s part. He believes Tonje Brenna and Hadia Tajik should enter the AP top. – Both should join a new top management and both can have the role of deputy chairman, he says. Tonje Brenna herself has denied that she is in the running for party secretary. If both she and Tajik are to join as deputy leaders, Bjørnar Skjæran must step aside. Kjersti Stenseng must do the same, out of consideration for the gender balance in the Labor leadership. – As Arne Fossmo himself says, it is the policy by which we are measured and should spend time on fronting. Then I will not contribute to personal discussions in the media, says party secretary Kjersti Stenseng to news. – We have set up an election committee in the party which will do the work until the national meeting, she continues. Fossmo in Ringebu is not alone among the Labor mayors in wanting renewal in the party leadership. Kristiansand mayor Jan Oddvar Skisland, who heads KS’s metropolitan network, says a “proper assessment” must be made of what serves Ap best in the future. – The results and opinion polls are so dramatic that it would be unnatural if you do not make a proper assessment of whether the party has a properly composed leadership, he says to news. Asking for changes Mayor Wenche Pedersen in Vadsø also believes that changes should be made in the Labor Party’s top leadership. – I believe that space should be made for both Hadia Tajik and Tonje Brenna in the cabal that is being put together, says the Vadsø mayor. Vadsø mayor Wenche Pedersen. Photo: Knut-Sverre Horn In Nes på Romerike, mayor Grete Sjøli says that it “would have been healthy to have replacements”. – Maybe all of them? And it’s not about “one” being this way or that, because each one does a good job and has stood up to tough times for a long time. But I am also unsure, because it is not certain that there will be changes that are for the better for the party, she says. So far, only Rogaland Ap has proposed that Hadia Tajik step in as deputy chairperson. Other county teams have so far not mentioned the deputy leader question directly in their submissions to the election committee or pointed to Tonje Brenna. But with its decision, Oslo has opened the way for major replacements to be needed. That Brenna becomes the new deputy leader will not lead to any direct need for further replacements in the Ap management. The reason is that the one vice-chairman’s post that AP’s bylaws allow the party to hold has been vacant since Hadia Tajik resigned as a result of the commuter housing case last year. Mixed picture Among the mayors who have responded to inquiries from news, there are also several who believe that the current management should continue. – I am not sure that Ap needs to do so much with its top management. What needs to happen is that the government and all the ministers become clearer and come up with faster clarifications and measures on questions and challenges that most people are concerned about, says mayor Per Lerøy in Austrheim. Mayor Per Lerøy in Austrheim. He says he has great confidence in both Bjørnar Skjæran and Kjersti Stenseng. In Porsgrunn, mayor Robin Kåss sees no reason to point to specific people in Ap’s management. – In my view, AP’s low readings are not due to individuals, but to the fact that we have to spend time building up trust during a demanding period. Now the election committee should be allowed to work on creating the best possible whole, he says. Mayor Vidar Eltun in Vang. Photo: Dag Kessel / news Mayor Terje Wikstrøm in Hammerfest and mayor Vidar Eltun in Vang i Valdres also refer to the work in the election committee, but Eltun also points to Tonje Brenna. – I think it is good with some renewal. In my opinion, Tonje Brenna should be given the position of deputy leader, he says.
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Labor mayor wants to throw out the leadership – news Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country
