– The election result is a historic defeat for the Labor Party. The success of the united right-wing, in size and breadth, has brought us into a crisis, writes Kolberg in a statement on news.no. – That the party leadership does not want to call this a crisis intensifies the crisis, he believes. CRITICAL: Martin Kolberg believes Ap is in crisis. Photo: William Jobling / news It is 50 years since the Labor Party’s former prime minister Trygve Bratteli employed him in the party. Since then, he has been a power factor in Ap. He has several important positions behind him, both in the government apparatus and as a former party secretary and parliamentary representative. Now he takes the blade from his mouth. – The election defeat is not technical. It is political. We are facing a lack of confidence among our voters, he says. SV must enter the government now – The worst that can happen The election results ended with the Conservative Party becoming the country’s largest party for the first time in almost 100 years. In large cities and municipalities, the bourgeois parties can do big things. Labor leader Jonas Gahr Støre has acknowledged that the election result was too bad, but he has not used the word crisis to describe the situation. Neither did Labor secretary Kjersti Stenseng when news interviewed her just over a week ago. – No, I do not use the term crisis. The most important thing for me is that we recognize that we have made a very bad choice, a far too bad election result, said Stenseng. Martin Kolberg held central positions in the Labor Party for a lifetime. Here with former Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg at Youngstorget in 2006. Martin Kolberg led the election committee that installed Jonas Gahr Støre as the new leader of the Labor Party in 2014. Jens Stoltenberg and Martin Kolberg in 2002. On the wall behind hangs Haakon Lie, another legendary party secretary. The trade union movement, the trade union, the trade union. Martin Kolberg’s famous quote from one of his many speeches is an expression of what he thinks about LO. Last year LO leader Peggy Hessen Følsvik said that SV should enter the government, now Kolberg says the same. Martin Kolberg made the leap from the party office to the Storting late in his political career. In total, there were three terms in the National Assembly before he stepped down at the election in 2021. Former Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland and Martin Kolberg worked closely together for many years. Here, Kolberg receives congratulations on his 60th birthday from Gro and her husband Arne Olav Brundtland. But Kolberg, who had Stenseng’s job for eight years until 2009, believes the party now risks falling into a “dangerous trap”. – I have been at Youngstorget since 1973. I know how easy it is to start thinking that as the days and weeks go by, as I write in the statement, that things will eventually get better. Next time we will be the biggest again, and next time we will retain government power, says Kolberg and continues: – The acknowledgment of defeat must be real. Simply because the defeat is real. We are in a new situation. – How much responsibility for the situation do Støre and the party leadership have? – No more than the rest of us. Management always has a special responsibility. It is obvious and perfectly fine to say. That’s how it’s always been. – Is Jonas Gahr Støre the right man to lead the Labor Party, also until 2025? – The National Assembly has chosen Jonas. I have stood behind Jonas all these years, and the answer to that is yes. – Is this the right time to make this type of criticism? – Yes, when else would it arrive? It is now that we see the election results, it is now that it is here. And all of us who are happy with the Norwegian Labor Party need to now use our voice. What I am most afraid of is that it will be quiet. POPULAR: Martin Kolberg met Ap’s front man in Stavanger, Kari Nessa Nordtun, during the interview with news. Photo: William Jobling / news Wants SV in government Kolberg, who did not seek re-election to the Storting in 2021, believes it is urgent to restore the trust of voters. He advocates expanding the government by inviting SV. – A deep and serious crisis such as we now have cannot be solved by doing more of the same. Such a crisis must be met with a fundamentally new dynamic, with real change, he says and concludes: – The Labor Party must now take the initiative to form a majority government. SV must make itself available for that. But when LO leader Peggy Hessen Følsvik proposed the same during the LO congress last year, the invitation was shot down by Ap’s government partner the Center Party. From SV’s side came a demand to scrap the Hurdal platform and start the government’s soundings all over again. MINORITY: SV’s Audun Lysbakken, Aps Jonas Gahr Støre and Sps Trygve Slagsvold Vedum were unable to agree on a majority government in Hurdal in 2021. Photo: Torstein Bøe / NTB – To those in SV who might think that the party is not strategically served by save the pieces of Ap, I want to say: This is no longer about party tactics. It is about a fateful moment for the Norwegian left, writes Kolberg in the news chronicle. – That is why SV must take responsibility now. We must come together to rule the country. SV and for that matter Rødt must stop criticizing the Labor Party, and correct it where it belongs. Kolberg’s appeal also goes to Sp: – All the values that they really stand for in Norwegian politics can only be secured by a strong left. A right-wing party with a strong FRP will actually challenge all the values that Sp stands for. – Critically bad choice Party secretary Kjersti Stenseng says she agrees with “mostly everything” Kolberg writes, and that an honest and open self-examination and evaluation is needed in Ap. – No one thinks that we should just sweep this under the rug and continue as before. We have to face it with an acknowledgment that it is a seriously bad choice, says Stenseng to news. – We must take political and organizational measures to create real change. By real change, I mean that we must strengthen ourselves towards 2025, and that does not happen by itself. – Why is it so dangerous to call this a crisis? – I’m not too concerned with what you call it. I am concerned that actual action is taken. It is a critical bad choice and a critical election result for the left. AGREE: Party secretary Kjersti Stenseng says an honest and open self-examination is needed. Photo: William Jobling / news – When I say that there is no crisis in the Labor Party, it is because I believe we have a strong party organisation, which will start with mayoral powers, continue to govern the country in government and develop new policies. I believe we are capable of taking real steps and making the changes needed to strengthen us towards 2025. I don’t think a party in crisis would have been able to do that. Stenseng warns that no one in Ap will settle down with an election result of 21.6 percent. She is careful not to comment on the government question, beyond saying that these are discussions that will come to light towards 2025. – We have an Ap/Sp government that we intend to continue with. But: it’s no secret that Ap went to the polls in 2021 on a red-green government that also included SV. We believed that it was a majority government that would deliver the best policies to the people.
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