A significant proportion of Ap voters believe Helga Pedersen should have become the Labor Party’s party secretary. The support for Kjersti Stenseng is low.

The survey carried out by TV2 shows that 50.9 percent of Ap voters who responded want Helga Pedersen as party secretary. Only 22 percent want the current Kjersti Stenseng, according to TV2.

NTB reports on the case.

This is startlingly weak support for the current party secretary, whom the party has more or less finally decided to re-elect for a new term. The election takes place at the national meeting over 4–6 May.

The survey was carried out by Kantar and had 2,000 people surveyed. Of these, Labor Party voters make up 289 respondents. For Pedersen’s support the margin of error is +/- 5.8 percentage points and for Stenseng’s support it is +/- 4.8 percentage points.

The distance between them is so great, so the measurement is significant, says TV2. Many will object anyway that the sample, with only 289 surveyed Ap voters, is somewhat thin.

Pedersen announced on Sunday that she is withdrawing from the race to become the Labor Party’s party secretary. She was considered an alternative to Stenseng for a long time, not least because she represents Finnmark and Northern Norway.

Helga Pedersen was previously deputy leader of the Labor Party.

The northern part of the country has lost its current representative in top management, as Bjørnar Skjæran steps down as deputy leader. Pedersen as the new party secretary, instead of Stenseng, would help to fill such a void for Northern Norway in the party’s top circle.

But now Helga Pedersen is out of that cabal:

When I made my decision, I knew that I had a lot of support within the party organisation. But at the same time not enough support for me to believe that I would have been able to carry out the job as party secretary in a satisfactory manner, says Pedersen.