An intense power struggle is widely believed to be behind the sudden but not unexpected resignation late Thursday night of Olaug Bollestad, leader of Norway’s Christian Democrats Party (Kristelig Folkeparti, KrF). The drama that played out through the summer lent credence to political commentators’ claims that the party is no Sunday School.
That’s often said of the turbulent Labour Party, where power struggles are common. The Christian Democrats/KrF, which once held government power but now holds only around 3 percent of the vote, was long viewed as being above that. Party members have also been quarreling both internally and publicly in recent years, though, not least over whether to side with the left (Labour-led) or right (Conservatives-led) side of Norwegian politics, or build their own profile.
The biggest problem, however, has been the party’s miserable standing in public opinion polls, especially with the national election looming next fall. Bollestad, age 62 from Rogaland, went out on long-term sick leave in June. It’s still not clear whether she’s physically ill or psychologically worn out, and neither she nor those who’ll now take over top party leadership were willing to talk about it.
She confirmed in a brief meeting with reporters late Thursday night that she was summoned to a central board meeting in early August and again on Thursday “even though I was on sick leave.” The agenda for the meetings was not revealed, but the board reportedly had received a complaint about her leadership style that needed to be addressed.
Others including Vebjørn Selbekk, editor of the Christian newspaper Dagen, have reported dramatic meetings in June and August that centered on Bollestad’s future as party leader. Dagen even reported that one of the party’s two deputy leaders, Dag Inge Ulstein, and party secretary Ingunn Ulfsten had tried to get Bollestad to step aside. When that didn’t happen, wrote Selbekk in a recent commentary, “then came the complaint” about Bollestad’s leadership from three administrative employees in the party.
Newspaper Vårt Land, which specializes in coverage of the rural areas and district politics to which the Christian Democrats cater, later reported that Bollestad fired back at her deputy leaders and the party secretary at the meeting on August 6. She reportedly accused them, including Ulstein, of trying to pressure her into resigning, and called it “a coup.”
Bollestad ultimately claimed, in a short prepared statement delivered after the seven-hour central board meeting on Thursday, that she chose to resign and wasn’t pushed out. “After my own evaluation of what’s best for the party, I have chosen to step down as leader,” she read before a group of reporters shortly before midnight. “It’s good for me to say that this was my own choice, and not something I’ve been asked to do by the central board.”
She said that the party’s leadership (which formally consisted of herself, deputy leaders Ulstein and Ida Lindtveit Røse, and party secretary Ulfsten) had “tried to find a solution” without succeeding. None of them would reveal or confirm the nature of the core problem that needed a solution. Bollestad then left without taking any questions.
Ulstein, who had said weeks ago that he wanted to resign as deputy leader and didn’t plan to run for re-election to Parliament, was instead tapped to immediately take over as “acting leader” of the party. His photograph already topped the party’s website Friday morning. No further information about the drama or the reason Bollestad quit was offered, with Ulstein merely repeating again and again at the late-night meeting with reporters that Bollestad had chosen to resign “and we respect that.”
His response was much the same Friday morning when grilled on NRK’s popular 15-minute radio talk show Politisk kvarter. He flat out refused to say why Bollestad had resigned or why the board had accepted her resignation. He denied there’d been an alleged “coup” within the party, but wouldn’t elaborate.
Bollestad had taken over as party leader in 2021, after Kjell Ingolf Ropstad resigned in the midst of scandal over how he’d violated the Parliament’s commuter housing rules and gained financially from the misuse. Ropstad has also announced he won’t run for Parliament in next year’s national election.
Now the leadership post has falled to Ulstein, who claimed that “everyone is sorry that the party has landed in this situation,” still without elaborating on the reason for it. “We can only refer to what Olaug just said and the decision she has made,” he told reporters Thursday night. “There will be a possibility later to thank Olaug and say something about what she has meant for the party.”
Asked whether she was pressured into quitting, he said “no, but we respect her decision.” He said he still doesn’t want to run for re-election to Parliament, and therefore isn’t a candidate to become party leader on a permanent basis. Others think he’ll eventually change his mind and take over. “I hope he will,” Frode Bøthun, leader of Sogndal KrF, told NRK on Friday. Ulstein won high marks for stepping in for Bollestad, when she was still on sick leave, at a party leader debate during the recent annual political festival in Arendal.
Ulstein’s fellow deputy leader, Ida Lindtveit Røse, has no seat in Parliament because of the party’s poor showing in the last election when it won only 3.8 percent of the vote. Polls since have often showed the party to be under 3 percent, but it creeped up a bit.
Røse is now viewed as a candidate for both a seat in Parliament and the party leader post. She had no comment other than saying “this is not the time or place to talk about that now.” NRK reported on Friday that KrF’s county leader in Akershus County, one of Norway’s largest, wants Røse to take over as party leader. That would automatically make her a candidate for Parliament as well, along with Bollestad herself. Bollestad stated Thursday night that she still looks forward “to coming back to Parliament, when that time comes.”
Many of KrF’s county leaders elsewhere around the country, such as Jon Olav Økland in Vestland, expressed relief on Friday that “the party turbulence was over.” Kjell Magne Bondevik, a former prime minister from KrF when the party was much bigger in the late 1990s, said it was “of course sad what happened” and that party leadership and candidates for public office must be clarified as soon as possible. “There’s still time to work towards to good election results,” Bondevik told NRK.
NewsinEnglish.no/Nina Berglund
