Short Path from Messiah to the Scapegoat – VG

It has been a somewhat uphill battle for the Liberal Party. You have to look well in memory to reach the last stable party on the edge of the barrier. The explanations for why the Liberal Party is fighting, however, have been many and creative.

In the years when the Liberal Party was a party supporting the Solberg government, that was the problem. They became too invisible and anonymous, they said. Only the Liberal Party entered the government and was able to show its policy, if the sewing issues were in order. The party secured three ministers and a breakthrough on the Jeløya platform, but the rally was long overdue.

Fortunately, the leftists quickly found a new scapegoat. Suddenly, it was his partner Frp who was the problem. The FRP spooked voters and overturned its policies, they said. But despite the fact that the FRP disappeared from the government and another liberal minister entered, not much happened at the polls either.

The Liberal Party is today in its dream government with the Conservatives and Christian Democrats. They also have four ministers in what should be the dream ministries of the Liberal Party. Knowledge, climate, industry, and culture are created to address the problems at the heart of the Liberal Party. The visibility of the ministers is not something to say either. The conditions could not have been more suitable for success.

This weekend, they have also done something about what has long been an alternative explanation for the party’s troubles. The party leadership is out of date and unable to generate enthusiasm, they said. However, with a low voice and only on the hooks. Although Trine Skei Grande has made important political breakthroughs and led the party to cross the border in two elections in a row, some have thought that she is also a problem for the Liberal Party.

Now they also don’t have Trine Skei Grande to blame. The rose and the ovations were loose when they thanked him on Saturday. Skei Grande’s own list of boasts is long, but not unfounded. The Liberal Party is probably the party that in recent years has given voters the most power per vote.

This weekend, the entire management trio was replaced. The new wine, Guri Melby, Sveinung Rotevatn and Abid Raja is “the most dynamic, committed, competent, solution-oriented and well-known leadership trio that Norwegian politics can find,” said nominating committee chair Per Thorbjørnsen. With that modesty only a leftist can show himself.

The nominating committee has also spent ten meetings, 16 days, and 59 interviews trying to reach its new dream team. Don’t let us down, was the fervent prayer of the nominating committee to the newly elected trio of leaders.

But if there is someone who is easy to disappoint, it is the Liberal Party. The path from the Messiah to the scapegoat is short. Most of the responsibility now falls on the new leader of the Liberal Party, Guri Melby. Although she has extensive experience and has impressed as Minister of Education, it is still an undisclosed magazine. Given that she barely managed to run for leadership before being suddenly nominated, we know little about what she wants with the party.

But just because there is much that leads to success does not mean that the party is without challenges.

Although the top management is new and shiny, the base is even more tired and fragile. The Liberal Party has lost members, mayors, and representatives of municipal councils in great numbers. A large proportion of voters come from the three municipalities of Oslo, Asker and Bærum. However, there is a marked city-country separation across the party, which among other things arises in the debate on land rent, property tax and free school choice. The match is characterized by many local one-man teams with old fighters. The renovation is remarkably small, on all levels. The question is what will Melby do with this.

The second challenge has to do with the most important thing, politics. It has become increasingly popular for politicians today to quote Trygve Bratteli: We understood the time we live in. And we gave answers that people believed in.

You will hardly hear that in the Liberal Party.

What the party spent most of the weekend in were highly engaged discussions about active euthanasia, extending the abortion limit and the EU. When it comes to important questions of principle, but how many outside the National Assembly hall are passionate about it? The same can be said of the decisions that were made to reduce the level of sanction and remove the legal gender from public records. At times, one might have the feeling of listening to a seminar at Blindern, not a national meeting of a ruling party that governs important areas of politics.

A major exception was Guri Melby’s closing speech. She has long shown that she has a nose for interesting problems, and that also permeates her first speech to the party: school reform. Fight for the climate and the environment. Green jobs. Culture and freedom of expression. Democracy. – Because there is no one who has a better response to the great challenges than the Liberal Party, she concluded.

He is not entirely unaware of the peculiar lack of modesty of his own party, which no one dominates better than the leftists.