She’s 85 years old and recently widowed, but former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland ended up making an unexpected comeback in local politics last year. Now she’s resigning her seat on the Oslo City Council, citing health reasons.
State broadcaster NRK reported late last week that Brundtland, a former leader of the Norwegian Labour Party, had asked to be released from her duties in Oslo politics. She’d been elected to the city council almost by default last year: As a former prime minister she’d been granted an honorary spot at the end of the nomination list for the city where she resides, but then a few thousand voters sent her up to 11th place, and that was enough to land her a spot on the city council. She also became a member of its health and social welfare committee.
She’s had various health problems recently, however, and then her husband Arne Olav Brundtland died last summer at the age of 87. The woman everyone calls simply “Gro” clearly decided that her years of political service had also come to an end.
It’s not easy to resign from elected office in Norway, but the city council’s secretariat led by Lars Arne Ryssdal stated that the requirements for being released from service had been met. He recommended that her request to resign from the rest of her term in office be approved and it was, at a special meeting on Monday afternoon.
Brundtland, educated as a doctor, ended up spending most of her life in politics and rose to the top of the Labour Party. She had three separate terms as prime minister, in 1981, from 1986-89 and again from 1990-96, during which she actively supported Norway’s bid to join the EU that ultimately was rejected by the voters. She’s also a former minister of the environment from 1974-79, and when she first left Norwegian politics, she became head of the UN’s World Health Organisation (WHO), serving from 1997-2003.
After that she was a UN special envoy on climate issues and part of a group known as The Elders, which included former political and business leaders who addressed and advised on global problems. Among them were Desmond Tutu and Jimmy Carter.
She’s also known for grooming other Labour prime ministers including Jens Stoltenberg and Jonas Gahr Støre, both of whom either worked for her or served in her governments. She and her husband lived for many decades in a home on Oslo’s Bygdøy peninsula, which is why she landed in Oslo city politics. Now she may finally retire.
NewsinEnglish.no/Nina Berglund