Politicians who fail and fall – and the way back – VG

by Tone Sofie Aglen

commentator

We wouldn’t like the politicians we get if everyone was clean. Fortunately, there is more room for forgiveness and wrongdoing than we think. Hadia Tajik, Kjell Ingolf Robstad and Trond Gesek show how this can be done – not done.

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Even when such a seemingly perfect and professional politician as Hadia Tajik is forced to leave due to old mistakes, who is “pure” enough? Many expressed this concern after yet another political pullout following the revelations of passenger housing and tax havens.

In Parliament, many politicians are afraid to make mistakes. The fear of getting attached as a type of thug is so strong that many become more wary.

However, it doesn’t seem to be over. After the horrific passenger housing affair that led to Kjell Ingolf Ropstad’s resignation as Minister and Leader of the KrF, one might think that everyone who has approached the position of the Heart and Kidney Examination Authority has. However, Parliament Speaker Eva Christine Hansen of the Labor Party and the Deputy Leader and Minister of Labor of Tajikistan all managed to fall into the same trap. Now they are ribbed back.

One of the most dangerous side effects of democracy is that trust in politicians appears to have been eroded.

The consolation for individual politicians is that there is more room for tolerance than one might think when it blows from all sides. Also, the memory is short. If you go through the representatives in Parliament, the vigilant will know that there are many who have made some mistakes. Some have lost their jobs but have regained confidence. For others, it has ended up with a scratch in the paint or the criticism has faded. In any case, most cases have to be dug deep into memory to persist.

The gravity of the issue is, of course, decisive. According to political scientist Kim Arild Hammerstad, it never happened that a politician came back after that. Economic scandal.

There is still a lot about dealing. If you managed to put all the cards on the table at the right time, many could have been avoided.

One who succeeded in this was former conservative minister Torbjørn Røe Isaksen (now a commentator at E24) when it was revealed that he had participated in Nikolai Tangin’s “Dream Symposium” in the US. He held a press conference in which all costs and correspondence were presented. An awkward session, but probably effective.

The worst thing for a politician is to be pushed from bastion to bastion, with constant little drops of new issues. Lying is a mortal sin, if the fault is never insignificant.

Since so few of them were able to empty the cabinets for the skeletons on their own, this was clearly easier said than done. Perhaps there are some beautiful human instincts at play. They disappear “under the bunker”, as they are often called.

One disdains oneself, thinks that it does not matter to oneself, convinces oneself that he is right and the outside world is wrong, only listens to the after talk or hopes that it will pass. Hadia Tajik and Eva Kristen Hansen seemed thrilled that this could apply to them both when faced with the passenger housing issue.

Because politicians themselves find it very difficult to clean up a mess, it is wise to have a machine around them. If a minister got into trouble, it was common for someone in the prime minister’s office to sit on him or her until everything was shown.

After the resignation of the former leader of the Socialist Party, Asluj Haga, from the position of Minister of State Then Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said “Every time I appoint a minister, I assure that all the required information must be on the table. Then you have to decide on that basis whether it is a problem or not.” So Stoltenberg believed that it was possible to be a minister in Norway and at the same time not lead a clean life.

It is not known what the situation was in the Tajikistan issue, but there are few indications that the party had any special control over the situation.

Another important component is asking for forgiveness. in a way that people believe in. The person who showed sincere remorse on his face was Kjell Ingolf Robstad. He impressed many when, in an interview with Reverend Egil Svarddal, he spoke of tears, stress and remorse:

– As a politician … very lucky – and I still wanted to make better use of these schemes and really thin … I should not have done it, said Robstad. In stark contrast to the conservative apologies received from politicians from the Labor Party.

But is there a viable way to get back for politicians who end up partially off the narrow track?

Sometimes the coincidences are so good that one would think that they were directed by higher powers. Just hours after Hadia Tajik resigned as Deputy Director, the film was shown about Trond Gesek, the former deputy director of Aps. The main plot of “Power Reigns” shows how Jesek twice tried to rise to a new position of confidence after he was forced to resign as deputy leader of the Labor Party.

Giske is unlikely to receive any award either because of sincere remorse or open crisis management. He found another way. The way he does it is by going back to his roots. In an old caravan painted red, he travels across the country and beach to speak to party members and voters.

The politician, who stood in the midst of the ruling elite and trotted on red runners with a high champagne factor, delivered sermons in small parish houses in front of dozens of listeners, a coffee pot and a plate of waffles. Thus he showed himself to be a politician the party needed, and gradually gained more support.

In the same way, Robstad acts as a boy for the first time in Parliament, writing notes, raising issues and doing work for the party when needed. It is the fate that awaits the Tajiks when she is now an ordinary parliamentary representative.

Whether they will reach the top again is uncertain, but they have every chance of returning and becoming important politicians. People forgive, and we love that people can get up again. Not least if the person has experienced unusually strong media pressure and a lot of adversity.

Trondjesek did not have a happy ending. At least it was not seen through the eyes of the main character. Jesse was very patient, he got past him and stumbled across the finish line.

What everyone wonders now if he tries again. You know, all good things are from wood.

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