– I don’t think it was a particularly good idea to change to the great-grandparent generation, but now it has been done, says Ole Henrik Magga. When the Sámi Parliament was established in 1989, there were 5,497 eligible voters in the Sámi Parliament’s electorate. Ole Henrik Magga in a TV interview when he was president of the Sámi Parliament. He was president from 1989 to 1997. Photo: news At that time, the Sami Parliament’s majority voted for Magga as the first Sami Parliament president. He had doubts when the Sámi Parliament was to decide whether to extend the electoral criteria from the grandparents to the great-grandparents generation. – How far back in the family can people be for them to have the reasonable interest and whether it is reasonable for them to be taken into consideration. If there are several generations behind in the family, then they may have lost contact with the Sami a long time ago, so that is a matter that needs to be assessed. – Back then I also thought that everyone would follow the law, says Magga. He emphasizes that there is of course a difference from person to person, but it is usually the case that a person who lives several generations after his great-grandparents has distanced himself quite far from the Sami. Expanded criteria When the first Sámi parliamentary elections were held in 1989, those persons could vote who perceived themselves as Sámi, and had at least one grandparent who had or had had Sámi as their home language. But already after the election, many advocated changing the criteria. In 1992, the Sami Parliament and the Ministry of Local Government put together a working group to assess who should have the right to vote in the Sami parliament. The working group’s majority proposed extending the second criterion from grandparents to great-grandparents. In addition, children of someone who is a member of the electorate should be able to register without additional requirements for documentation of the Sami languages. The working group argued for the extension that “The Sámi Parliament should be as representative as possible of the Sámi population and does not want the rules to exclude anyone who perceives themselves as Sámi and wants to be in the electoral roll.” If the criteria were not changed, the working group argued that “Strict delimitation will have a particularly unfortunate effect in the coastal and fjord areas of Northern Norway and for the Southern Sami area, where the Sami identity is very strong, while the position of the language is weak as a result of well-known historical reasons”, it is written in the working group’s report. The working group’s proposal was unanimously adopted by the Sámi Parliament in 1997, with former Sámi Parliament president Ole Henrik Magga at the head. For him, it was important to gather all Sámi parliament politicians behind such an important political decision, even if he personally had doubts. The Sámi Parliament’s plenary leader Tom Sottinen disagrees that the criteria should be investigated. Photo: Dragan Cubrilo / news The Sámi Parliament does not investigate the criteria The Sámi Parliament’s plenum decided in December last year to investigate the number of electors, after news uncovered people in the Sámi Parliament’s number of electors who violated the criteria. But the criteria shall not be considered. – Criteria are not part of the mandate that we have been given by the plenum, confirms plenum leader in the Sámi Parliament Tom Sottinen. The extension of the criteria in 1997 did not lead to more people joining the electoral roll, but in the period 2001 to 2005 the number increased by around 2,500. Recently, however, it has become very popular to join the electoral roll. A total of 20,454 people are registered in the electoral roll as of 30/06/21 Photo: The Sámi Parliament Last year, in just one year, the Sámi Parliament received 1,600 new entries to the Sámi Parliament’s electoral roll, or four applications a day. – We experience tremendous interest in participating in Sami democracy and I think the Sami sense of identity is strengthened because of that, he says. The more people who sign up for the electoral roll, the greater legitimacy the Sámi Parliament gets, believes Sottinen. At the same time, he feels that the celebration of the Sami’s national day is increasing in scope in Norway. He points out that interest in Sami art, music and especially film is also increasing. Sottinen believes it was right to expand the criteria. – We must remember that the process of Norwegianization has taken its toll, that many have lost the Sami language, and especially on the coast in northern Norway, the Norwegianization process has been brutal, he says. Sami are Sami even if they have lost their language, says the plenary leader. – Even if you then lost your connection to the language, you have not lost the Sami sense of identity or culture, it lives there, says Tom Sottinen. Beaska Niillas (NSR) says it may be relevant to look at the criteria. Photo: Benjamin Fredriksen / news It may be appropriate to assess the criteria It was the Sámi Parliament’s largest party, the Norwegian Sami National Confederation (NSR), which put forward the proposal to investigate the Sámi Parliament’s number of electors for the plenum. Although the survey will not take a position on the criteria, this may become relevant in the future, believes NSR’s group leader Beaska Niillas. – If the survey shows that this is a big problem, and people don’t care about rules, then of course we have to consider the criteria as well, says Niillas. The Sámi Parliament’s largest opposition party, Nordkalottfolket, is against narrowing the criteria. Toril Bakken Kåven (NKF) is against narrowing the criteria. Photo: Samuel Frode Grønmo / news – We are now approaching a situation where the humiliation after the Norwegianization is released, and the coastal people dare to write themselves into the census, and of course we as politicians, and the Sami Parliament as an institution, should be very satisfied with that, writes NKF- group leader Toril Bakken Kåven in an email. The Sámi Parliament’s second largest opposition party, the Labor Party, on the other hand, is positive about assessing the criteria. Doubts about the extension Although Ole Henrik Magga politically supported the extension of criteria, especially because of the consequences of the Norwegianization policy, he personally doubted the decision. – I was very hesitant to expand the criteria too much, he says. Magga fears that the expansion may have been devastating for Sámi who have been brought up with Sámi language and culture, and weaken the purpose on which the Sámi Parliament was founded. It will primarily preserve and develop the Sami languages and culture. – The purpose itself can disappear and be destroyed for those people who live with the Sami in everyday life and live according to the Sami values. They are the ones who should be voting. – Those who, on the other hand, have found a great-grandparent with the Sami language as their home language, I don’t think that is reasonable anymore, but it is a matter that needs to be considered, says Magga.
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Ole Henrik Magga doubted the extension of the Sami Parliament’s criteria – news Sápmi
