SV's entry into the irrationals of power is not only new to the party, it is new to the whole of political Norway. None of today's politicians have participated in this before. For the first time in ten years, a political party will try for the first time in government.
None of today's politicians can give Kristin Halvorsen or anyone else in the SV good advice on what it is like to get into this position without any old ring fox to get their support and comfort from.
When Kjell Magne Bondevik appeared in the castle square in 1997 with his Center Government, one of the spectators was his old friend, collaborator and former Prime Minister Lars Korvald. The Center Party's Anne Enger Lahnstein could get both praise and reprimands from former Prime Minister Per Borten or his predecessor in the party leadership role and one of the most talented negotiators in the Storting for several decades, Johan J. Jakobsen. The Liberal Party's Lars Sponheim was only happy to have got the party into the Storting and not least the government. But he also had experienced people like the debate-loving former party leaders Gunnar Garbo and Helge Seip. The Conservatives have many experienced former ministers they can make use of. We do not need to mention the Labor Party in particular. They have people who can almost leave the lunch box – with wholemeal bread – lying in the top drawer of the minister's offices until the next time they are appointed ministers.
Since the government was appointed it has been remarkably quiet from the old garden in the party. People like Stein Ørnhøi, Berge Furre and Ottar Brox have not wanted to say so much about what is happening. Earlier this week, Ottar Brox put his head in a post in the Classroom Fight, where he reveals a bit in the internal debate in SV. Ørnhøi and Furre need more time before they will give an analysis publicly about what they think about the situation. However, there is nothing to indicate that they have not actively participated in the discussions about the new leadership of the party elected this weekend.
And they may do well to wait with praise or criticism for the government project and the results. Brox comes with some stings, but still gives SV a chance. The old guard has such a long career in political dance, that they know that if they say something, it will be heard, and they can quickly get into a situation like "bambi on the ice". Of course, the journalists are lying in the bushes trying to get the statement they need for a spread. And they get them right as it is. But these are usually fragments of an image that does not necessarily tell the whole truth.
Ottar Brox says in his analysis that it is important to keep a cool head if one wants long-term progress for the issues that have made him and many others become SV voters. He warns against being fooled by all the "analyzes" of the party presented by political opponents.
At the same time, he calls for an SV that builds politics together. He gives the current leadership a clear message that the internal program debate in SV has long since passed away and that what happens to policy development only happens in the parliamentary group or perhaps only in the group board and the secretariat. He calls for a leadership that also includes that they have members in the party, and asks them to be more open to taking challenges from the members' debates in newspapers such as Ny Tid and Klassekampen, instead of only being challenged by the major media .
And here Ottar Brox is at the very core of the debate that is going on internally today. In opposition, the party could step forward and be populist and toss around with good proposals without finished calculations. The most important thing in opposition is to be visible and clear – and then it is up to the government to get the calculations to vote, as Øystein Djupedal, among other things, has said about the kindergarten initiative and the costs for this. But that was while Bondevik ruled the country.
Now the party is in position and has been handed the calculator. They even sit with the largest and finest calculator in the Ministry of Finance.
And with the party's people in position, it is clear that the grassroots need to be involved in the play and politics.
The government has only been in power for a few weeks. The Labor Party and the Center Party, as experienced government parties, have managed to get started without the fierce internal debates. They know that in position they pull the load together.
In SV, there are still some who have not had their heads changed from what many thought was an eternal opposition life – like the boy who does not want to grow up – and into a position of power.
For SV, it is important to have a clear policy, a lively debate and as comprehensive a party as possible, while at the same time controlling the country. A couple of unprotected parliamentary representatives who are demonstrating against the government should have room for all parties.
For party leadership, such situations as SV are up today should be the alarm that makes them admit that nothing happens by itself. If the floor plan is not fed, the party weathered, rolled over and taken to council. If the party leadership does not realize this, then SV's position of power ends with pure anarchy and a divided party.
Kristin Halvorsen does not have a sea of former government ministers and government bureaucrats to get support from. But she has a party of individualists who would like to think collectively. Her task is to get all the individualistic thought lines to think in roughly the same paths, and not as today where they spread in all directions. Here she has a job to do, if the goal is to avoid the Storting's last party without government experience, the Progress Party, to remain without this experience.