He had barely become the Liberal leader with a national meeting in April – VG

– There was no master plan behind my nomination as party leader. He probably would not have been elected party leader if the national meeting had been organized as planned in April, Guri Melby tells VG.

He sits on a sofa in his favorite café, The Green Kitchen, next to the Ministry of Education and Research in Oslo. It is only half a year ago that she surprisingly started as Minister of Education after Trine Skei Grande on the same day she closed school in Norway. On Saturday, she jumps behind Grande again, as the unanimously nominated leading candidate in the Liberal Party.

Guri Melby eliminated the other two leadership candidates, Sveinung Rotevatn and Abid Raja, although she is perhaps the least ambitious of them.

She herself thinks that one of the reasons is that she is very depressed instead of having external ambitions.

– Why did you come to the field so late to say that you wanted to be leader of the party?

– Honestly, I needed this time to find out for myself. This spring was very special. I became Minister of Education on March 13. At the time, he was probably far from the leadership position in the Liberal Party. I had been a name in the discussion. But it felt very far away. These were mainly Sveinung (Rotevatn) and Abid (Raja). I was responsible for a large sector that was closed. It was full-blown. I just had to focus on my job as a minister, says Guri Melby, who left most other things until the summer.

– Actually I am completely honest when I say that I did not spend a calorie thinking about what my role in the Liberal Party should be. Someone else found out. I told myself that I had to spend the summer deciding this, says Melby.

Drink Cola Zero straight from the bottle and speak straight from the liver.

– Did you get a warning beforehand that you were okay?

– No, the only thing I learned from the leader of the election committee just before summer break, was that I was the one who had changed my position the most in the contributions of the county teams last fall. Now my name was on all the county lists of who they wanted to include in the party leadership. The sober message of the chairman of the nominating committee had another influence on whether he wanted to be chairman or not. There’s a difference between becoming a leader at all costs and getting feedback that people really want you as a leader, Melby responds.

The long-awaited vacation in July, she was going to enjoy the children together in Trøndelag. And think about whether you really wanted to be a leader. That was not the case.

– After three days of vacation, I managed to break my arm on a trip to the forest. Instead of spending time, talking to people, going for a walk, and figuring out what I wanted in the leadership question over the summer break, I was practically immersed at home for a couple of weeks. It also slowed me down a bit in this process. This summer there was sick leave instead of vacation, reveals Melby.

The attentive reader of VG may have noticed that he posed at the government crown press conferences with a thin bandage on his left wrist. Actually, it was more serious than it sounds.

Melby was walking through Nøklevann in Østmarka with a friend when he slipped on a slippery rock.

– I fell and had to take care of myself, and I immediately noticed that this was wrong. The wrist was completely out of position, describes Melby, who claimed that the doctor on duty wrote in her diary that the injury occurred “in a jog.”

– I won’t brag that it was. But I left it in the patient record without correcting it, she says with a clever Melby smile on her face.

Then she gets the question that VG must ensure that we had also asked a parent of young children in the same position:

– You are the mother of young children and the minister of a huge sector at the time of the crown. Did you consider abandoning your leadership bid for fear of yawning too much?

– I was sincerely in doubt for a long time whether I should run as leader. It has to do with my family situation. The situation was already borderline in terms of contributing at home and being with the children as much as I wanted. At the same time, I thought that if I was ever going to do this, it was now, Melby replies, who until she became Minister was Deputy Representative of Trine Skei Grande at the Storting.

She speaks of a political commitment that has only grown stronger since she became a mother.

– At the same time, I believe that women should be able to fill all possible positions, including women with young children.

– What was it like knowing that veterans of parties like Trine Skei Grande and Odd Einar Dørum had a meaningful sense of you as a leadership candidate?

– I haven’t asked anyone who they prefer. I think they both would have supported the nominated leadership candidate no matter who it was. But both have been incredibly important to the Liberal Party. Both Trine and Odd Einar are among those I speak to when I consult with people. They provide good information. One should not listen to everything they have to say, but some of that is quite wise.

As usual, Melby had his phone silent during breakfast on Sunday, August 23. At ten o’clock she saw that she had called a family number. She contacted leader Per A. Thorbjørnsen on the nominating committee and was told that a joint nominating committee was in favor of her as the new party leader, as well as Sveinung Rotevatn as first vice president and Abid Raja as second leader. attached.

Melby has declined to comment on the August NRK case that he should have pointed out to the electoral committee that Raja should not be part of the new leadership of the Liberal Party party.

– What will it be like to have Raja as one of the two deputy leaders?

– I am very happy that Abid has agreed to become one of the two deputy leaders together with Sveinung (Rotevatn). If you want to have good management that works together, we must be the same, but also different. We quite agree on the direction, but different in form and mode of being.

– Do you have to keep Raja a little under the reins?

– I hope to let it pass. I think it is essential that everyone can be the way they are. But the important thing is that we agree on a project and route options in the ban. That we have a slightly different way and way of being is just good. It is absolutely necessary for a leader to surround himself with people who don’t just nod and say yes to everything. I know both Sveinung and Abid will resist. I am very happy about that.

How are you going to get a perennial ban party to settle on safe ground far above the exclusion limit?

– It is a job in which we must dare to dedicate some time. We have several things to work on: further clarifying our policy, building an organization and a great team. It is possible to have individual cases or individuals who can ride a wave of popularity in no time. But if you are going to build a larger lot that is stable over time, you need to build from the bottom up. We must get more active members who are proud to belong to and support the Liberal Party. It’s a long-term job, says Melby, who will be the party’s leader until 2022, at least.

Because as it says in the guide for delegates to this year’s national meeting:

“Elections take place almost every two years. Then the leadership of the entire Liberal Party will be replaced. That is to say: that’s how it is in theory. In practice, they are happy to sit for up to 16 years.”

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