(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
It was the hour of the substitute arguments when the SV national meeting last Sunday was to elect the central board for the party. From both sides of the conflict – which was basically about whether former SU leader and now SV's women's political leader Kari Anne Moe should get a seat on the central board – it hailed with arguments that would support one or the other view.
When the nomination committee presented its recommendation on Sunday morning, it was completely identical to that of the preparatory nomination committee: The conflict over whether the academic leader and the female political leader should sit on the central board was not resolved.
Left to left
The entire committee agreed that Ingunn Gjerstad should regain confidence as a professional leader, and that Kari Anne Moe should take the place as women's political leader. But the committee majority felt that the two should not get a seat in SV's top leadership, only in the government. The argument for this was that top management should consist of all-round politicians rather than people working in specific areas of affairs.
The minority felt that Gjerstad and Moe should be included in the central board. Apparently, this was the whole left wing's view, and it therefore aroused some wonder that they wanted to replace the left wing candidate from two years back, Sonja Tinnesand, with Ingunn Gjerstad.
missed
However, the reason was that SU would surely lose the fight if they had stated outright that the most important thing was to have former SU leader Kari Anne Moe elected. To have a chance, they relied on the majority meeting to support the principled view that the academic leader and the female political leader should sit on the central board. Therefore, the SUs had to sacrifice Tinnesand in favor of Gjerstad.
The result, when the votes were counted, showed that Gjerstad won over Tinnesand, but that Kari Anne Moe had to give up against Troms candidate Pål Julius Skogholt. Thus, the left wing in SV – of which SU is a part – had lost Tinnesand in the central board, at the same time as Moe did not come in.
Too radical
The reasons SU lost the match are probably these four:
Firstly, many of the delegates at the national assembly were worried that the trade union movement would raise the issue if the union leader was dismissed from the central board. That's why they voted for Gjerstad. The same turmoil did not exist in the question of the place of the female political leader.
Secondly, SU had set its candidate against a district representative, Skogholt, who lives and works in Tromsø. It's never an easy match in SV.
Third, Kari Anne Moe belongs to the left wing, which is, after all, a minority in the SV. She is therefore perceived as too controversial.
Fourth – and this was what was perceived as the big mistake – the SUs chose to pit Moe against a man, Skogholt, so that the gender balance in the central board would be broken with the articles of association. Including the female SU leader, the male share would be 33,3 percent. If the SU leader is kept out, the share would be 37,5 percent. The requirement in the articles of association is 40 percent.
Mistake?
What many asked at the national meeting was how the SUs could make such a mistake. Why did they not pit Moe against a woman instead? The answer is probably simple: The only women they could put Moe up against were SV leader Kristin Halvorsen, deputy leader candidate Henriette Westhrin and parliamentary representative Åsa Elvik. The reason why they did not challenge Halvorsen dares to be obvious. A match vote against Westhrin had probably not gone very well either, and would have created a very high level of conflict. And Åsa Elvik? She is as much as Kari Anne Moe SUerne's "own" representative – the two belong to the same SU generation. In other words, almost unthinkable.
This image is reinforced by Kari Anne Moe's supporters in the Chamber asking for the opportunity to make new proposals when the vote was over. This was interpreted so that if Ingunn Gjerstad lost to Sonja Tinnesand, Kari Anne Moe would stand against Tinnesand. That opportunity was lost when Gjerstad was chosen, because it was difficult to come afterwards and challenge the professional leader whom he had fought for.
New front figure
In addition to SU, it was SV's left wing that lost the match: Two years ago, they agreed to close down the so-called "SV network against right-wing turn" in exchange for Åsa Elvik and Sonja Tinnesand getting central board seats. Now the tactical game ended with Tinnesand disappearing, in favor of the more moderate Pål Julius Skogholt.
From the SV management's point of view, there is probably good and bad news in the case: The good thing is that they avoided having Kari Anne Moe as a central board member – and they really did not want that. The bad thing is that the left wing has gathered behind a front figure they will do a lot to get up and forward: The newly elected women's political leader, Kari Anne Moe.
Westhrin deputy
The Swedish National Assembly re-elected Kristin Halvorsen as leader and Bård Vegar Solhjell as party secretary. Øystein Djupedal was re-elected as one of two deputy leaders, while Henriette Westhrin was re-elected as Inge Ryan.
As a new arrangement, SV's national board has also received six directly elected representatives, in addition to the 19 who attend from the counties. Among these six we find the leader of the Norwegian Transport Workers' Union Per Østvold, SV's man in the leadership of the Local Government Association Åge Rosnes, the leader of SV's foreign policy committee Reza Rezaee and former leader of the Norwegian Farmers' and Smallholders' Association Aina Edelmann – in addition to women's policy leader Kari Anne Moe and that is, Sonja Tinnesand.
