comments expresses the writer’s opinions.
(Newspaper Oslo): Tor Mikkel Wara (59) has announced that he is a candidate for first place on the Progress Party’s list in Oslo at next year’s general election.
If he is really elected at the nomination meeting, such a profiled candidate will surely contribute to more attention around the election campaign in Oslo.
It was VG who could bring this news on Monday.
Was I – who has known Wara for over 30 years – surprised?
To the mild degrees, I must admit.
Had to get off
I was absolutely certain that Wara’s political career was over, for good, when he had to step down as Minister of Justice on March 29, 2019, after barely a year in the job, under extremely special circumstances:
On 14 March, his then-partner had been arrested by the Norwegian Police Security Service (PST), accused of setting fire to his own car a few days before. For a few months, there had been a number of threats against the Minister of Justice’s property. After a short time, the roommate was also charged for these conditions.
The then Prime Minister Erna Solberg stated that the arrest and suspicions “came as a shock to the entire government”. On all the rest of us too, I would add.
Tor Mikkel Wara was a kind of child and youth star when he first became known in the second half of the 1980s. Although he is from Finnmark, he was already elected to the Oslo city council in 1987. Two years later, he was elected to the Storting from Oslo, where he immediately became the party’s fiscal policy spokesperson. He went during this period to be the then party leader Carl I. Hagen listens most of all.
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Quit
But Wara wasn’t supposed to:
There quickly became a split between the liberals and the right-wing populists in the party. Carl I. Hagen stood somewhere in between and tried to keep the party together, but during the legendary national meeting at Bolkesjø – quickly renamed “Dolkesjø” – in the spring of 1994, Carl I. Hagen took sides against the liberals.
Shortly afterwards, Wara announced that he would not stand for re-election to the Storting, and subsequently resigned from the party.
Only when the FRP got a new leader, Siv Jensen, over ten years later, did Wara return to the party, now as an informal adviser behind the scenes, gradually more and more present. At the elections in both 2009 and 2013, he was a key adviser to Siv Jensen.
Throughout this period, Wara was a well-known information consultant for, among others, Geelmuyden & Kiese and First House.
There was enormous attention surrounding his major national political comeback in 2018. Today’s party leader Sylvi Listhaug had been forced to resign as a minister because a majority in the Storting had said they would vote for a motion of no confidence against her.
Siv Jensen’s move surprised everyone. All the Ministers of Justice of the FRP who went to the bar one after the other had become a public joke and unlucky for the party’s reputation.
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Offensive choice
Wara was perceived as an offensive choice. And popular. Inside the FRP, he was welcomed back as if he were a prodigal son, which he probably was. But Wara was also popular and respected in other parties.
In the Storting, the level of conflict surrounding justice matters abated noticeably once Wara had sat on the stool.
To VG, Wara will not comment on the matter that caused him to resign. The couple no longer live together.
In January 2021, the roommate was sentenced to one year and eight months in unconditional prison for attacks on democracy, arson and threats. She was also charged with threats against the then Minister of Emergency Situations Ingvil Smines Tybring-Gjedde and her husband Christian Tybring-Gjedde.
The latter is currently the FRP’s only Storting representative from Oslo, and is thus precisely the one who must give way if Wara’s candidacy is to become anything other than a distant dream. Will Christian Tybring-Gjedde (60) retire? He hasn’t said anything about it publicly.
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Served five terms
Next year, he has sat in the Storting for five terms, since 2005, i.e. for almost 20 years. There is no shortage of those in Oslo Frp who think that it has been long enough, and that it has even been a long time since it was long enough.
In the interview with VG, Wara says that he is only interested in first place. It’s a bit fresh, evil tongues might also say it’s somewhat arrogant? I am excited to see how the grassroots in Oslo FRP will view this candidacy in the future.
I have reason to believe that the launch of Wara has been planned for some time. Wara is currently a partner in the communications agency First House. Several prominent Frp people work there, such as former minister Jon Georg Dale and former state secretary Ole Berget. He must have had good help.
I would also like to believe that neither Siv Jensen nor another veteran like Ketil Solvik-Olsen has anything against this comeback.
It is also hardly disadvantageous that Oslo Frp’s super-veteran Arve Lønnum was recently elected leader of Oslo Frp. He is an old friend of Wara.
And perhaps Wara is telling the truth when he says that he has had no communication with party leader Listhaug about this, but I would be very surprised if some good helpers have not whispered a few words in her ear about this project.
Going down in salary
The timing is also a bit interesting. There is still a year and a half until the next election. Here it was clearly important to get on the pitch early. Last year, Wara had an income from First House of just under three million kroner.
Now he says that he will soon stop working there to campaign for himself full-time. It is a sign that the man means business.
While Oslo Frp used to be the party’s best county, it has declined significantly, especially in the last ten years. I would like to think that many of the Conservative Party’s voters in Oslo West may be more tempted to announce a switch to the FRP with Wara in front than with Tybring-Gjedde. And in the Conservative Party, the leaders have not said anything publicly about whether they want re-election, neither Ine Marie Eriksen Søreide, Nikolai Astrup, Heidi Nordby Lunde or Mudassar Kapur, while Mathilde Tybring-Gjedde has accepted.
With Tor Mikkel Wara’s launch of himself, national Oslo politics suddenly became more exciting.