Labour’s leadership battle gets underway (Aftenposten)

The first round in the battle for the Labour leadership revolves around the appointment of the selection committee, whose task will be to propose who should lead the party. Neither Gerd-Liv Valla, current president of the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO) nor her predecessor Yngve Hågensen will deny that they are candidates. At the same time the party’s branch chairmen have said they do not want the LO president to chair the committee. The two opposing factions, ranged behind Jens Stoltenberg and Thorbjørn Jagland, will now mobilize their forces to get as many of their fellow partisans as possible co-opted onto the selection committee. Following yesterday’s national executive committee meeting the battle for power in the Labour Party looks set to continue unabated. Mr Jagland and Mr Stoltenberg declared that they have placed themselves ‘at the disposal’ of the party. "This does not clarify the situation. Someone has to lose this battle," said Labour’s Grethe Fossum.

Labour factions disagree on content of leadership compromise (Dagsavisen)

Yesterday’s national executive committee meeting did not provide a solution to the Labour Party’s leadership dispute. The compromise deal fell apart when the sides were asked to spell out its contents. Thorbjørn Jagland’s supporters fought with Jens Stoltenberg’s followers over what the settlement actually means. Mr Jagland and Mr Stoltenberg told the national executive committee yesterday that they place themselves at the disposal of the party. The media were handed a press release from the meeting. It contained, we were told, everything the party leaders wanted to say on the leadership issue. In the months ahead the battle will be fought out at the branch AGMs and in the selection committee’s meetings. Thorbjørn Jagland and Jens Stoltenberg interpret the contents of the scheme they presented to yesterday’s national executive committee meeting in very different ways. Mr Jagland’s supporters believe it is a step in the direction of securing the continuation of shared party leadership.

Bitter struggle for leadership (Dagbladet)

Just minutes after Thorbjørn Jagland and Jens Stoltenberg had assured the party that they stand shoulder to shoulder on the way forward, they revealed the bitter disagreement between them on how the party should be led. Mr Stoltenberg’s answers and his body language throughout yesterday show that he has had enough of sharing leadership of the party with Mr Jagland. He will tell the selection committee so in no uncertain terms. He was clearly frustrated and angry over Mr Jagland’s repeated attempts to force him into accepting continued shared leadership. At the press conference, during interviews and television debates yesterday, Mr Jagland said that he will still be leading the party after Labour’s annual conference in November. However, the last thing Jens Stoltenberg said before going home yesterday was: "We who hold leadership positions should not work for our own reelection. That would be quite wrong." It is difficult to interpret this comment as anything but a dig at Mr Jagland.

Branch chairmen want one boss (Verdens Gang)

Eight of the Labour Party’s branch chairmen want an end to the power sharing between Jens Stoltenberg and Thorbjørn Jagland. The party’s North Trøndelag branch committee was unanimous when it voted to give Thorbjørn Jagland the boot as party chairman. This is the first formal resolution within the party in favour of abandoning the two-leader model. VG spoke yesterday to 15 of the party’s 19 branch chairmen. All of them were happy with the result of yesterday’s national executive committee meeting, and support Mr Jagland and Mr Stoltenberg’s declaration that they have placed themselves at the disposition of the selection committee. Nevertheless, many of them did not trust the pair’s ability to work together.

15 per cent good enough for Labour (Dagens Næringsliv)

Raymond Johansen, chief investigator of the political doldrums experienced by the Labour Party’s Oslo branch, sees nothing wrong in the party continuing to command the support of 15-20 per cent of the electorate. Mr Johansen and the rest of his team of investigators from the Labour Party’s Oslo branch will conclude their efforts on Thursday. "For the past decade politicians have completely lacked the ability and the will to think ideologically and philosophically. Politicians must regain the will to think ideologically. It is an absolute must. Labour must succeed in becoming a party which defines the ideological debate. The party must have a vision," said Mr Johansen.

Oil meeting behind closed doors (Dagens Næringsliv)

Kjell Inge Røkke, Eivind Reiten, Olav Fjell and Petroleum and Energy Minister Einar Steensnæs are due to meet today in Sandefjord. For two days every oil industry executive worth his salt will be on hand to meet leading politicians for discussions about the future of Norway’s oil and gas policies. The conference in Sandefjord, organized by the Norwegian Petroleum Association, has been an annual event for the past 20 years, and has never been open to the press or other outside interests. According to the organizers this allows the participants to feel freer to discuss the industrial and political challenges facing the sector.

Kværner popular with investment funds (Aftenposten)

The preliminary result of the private placement of shares in Kværner shows that Norwegian institutional investors have returned to the company. Norwegian institutions account for nearly half of the 250 million Kværner shares which have been placed in the share issue. Their attitude to Kværner is now quite different from that in evidence last spring and autumn. At that time Norwegian unit trust funds and insurance companies abandoned the beleaguered industrial conglomerate in droves.

Worth Noting

• While the man responsible for killing three people in Geilo at the weekend had his AG-3 automatic rifle at home, local police officers had to collect weapons and protective equipment from the police station before they could launch their hunt for him. "It is a paradox that army reservists have much easier access to firearms than the police," said Arne Johannessen, head of the Police Union. (Dagbladet)
• A gun lock on army reservists’ weapons could have prevented this weekend’s tragedy in Geilo. Commanders of the Norwegian Home Guard are now thinking of equipping all their weapons with gun locks. At the same time the Home Guard has embarked on a review of its entire force of 83,000 men. The process is one of the most wide-ranging undertaken by the Armed Forces in recent times. (Nationen)
• An investigation currently underway shows that one per cent of army reservists are unfit to be in possession of a firearm. So far 400 of around 40,000 army reservists have lost the right to keep a weapon at home. (Aftenposten)
• When the appeal court hearing opened yesterday all four of the accused in the Orderud triple-murder case declared themselves not guilty. They are charged with being accessories to premeditated murder. The prosecution is seeking a guilty verdict and 21 years imprisonment for all four. Yesterday prosecution and defence counsel joined battle to win over the jury, which is what it is all about in the Court of Appeal. Three members of the Orderud family were murdered at their family farm in Sørumsand on 22 May 1999. (Aftenposten)
• Of the 146 new congregations which have been formed in Norway in the past six years only about a quarter belong to the Church of Norway. The vast majority of the new congregations belong to free church denominations. (NTB)

Today’s comment from Verdens Gang

There was, as expected, no clarification of the bitter leadership battle taking place within the Labour Party during yesterday’s national executive committee meeting. The performance given by party chairman Thorbjørn Jagland and deputy leader Jens Stoltenberg during yesterday’s post-meeting press conference demonstrated for all the world that the two men are fundamentally at odds over the way ahead. They did agree to place themselves at Labour’s ‘disposal’ in a joint effort to reunite the party, but how this is to be done remained, to put it mildly, unclear. Thorbjørn Jagland has announced he is seeking reelection. Jens Stoltenberg refuses to declare his final position until the selection committee convenes in March. While Mr Jagland says he wishes the two-pronged leadership to continue, Mr Stoltenberg refuses to confirm that he agrees with his party chairman on this. In practice this probably means that Mr Stoltenberg would like to get rid of the party’s power sharing scheme. In practice it probably also means that Mr Stoltenberg is ready to challenge Mr Jagland for the leadership, if he feels he has sufficient backing within the party to do so. Before the day was out, however, the ‘clarification’ the party’s national executive committee thought it had got yesterday had crumbled into bizarre disarray. The frustration currently felt in the party machine will continue. For weeks and months ahead the party’s politics will take a back seat. The former party of government cannot even manage to govern itself.