Norway’s small Christian Democrats party, which has lost lots of voters in recent years, has so few members in a small town south of Oslo that it lacked candidates for office in the upcoming local government elections this fall. The party then asked a local Muslim to run for office, and he agreed.
“I’m not Christian, but this isn’t about being religious,” the agreeable Farrukh Iqbal told state broadcaster NRK.”It’s about people and values.”
Iqbal said he was keen to help, and couldn’t find a reason to turn down the Christian Democrats’ request and run for office in Skiptvet, which long has been dominated by the Labour Party. The call came from Thomas Graff, who tops the Christian Democrats’ candidates’ list in Skiptvet and bothrespects and shares many of Iqbal’s political opinions.
“We can understand that this may be controversial,” Graff said, but he decided it was important to think in an untraditional manner. The party also dropped, in 2013, its longtime requirement that active party members must consider themselves Christian.
newsinenglish.no staff