VG reveals: Ropstad said he wanted a red win internally but started the hard-hitting abortion and hard fight against Hareide after a super secret meeting with Erna

Just a few days in advance, however, was the situation in the back room of the KrF:

Sitting on a chair indoors Knut Arild Hareides On Monday, October 8, Ropstad assured the owner of a party that he would be loyal to Hareide, even if he disagreed with the governmental option that KrF should choose:

"Basically, I hope Knut Arild wins. You know that!

Ropstad said this face-to-face with Hareide's closest colleague, Emil André Erstad, while Hareide was out of the office.

After that, Ropstad said exactly the same to other important party people.

Private calls

In private talks, Ropstad Hareide also asserted, saying he had no trouble getting into the government whose red side would win. Unlike Hareide, as had informed his Members that he would of if the blue side won.

"Believing what Ropstad said is what I most regret throughout this process, summing up a central source on the red side who followed the drama from within.

Through interviews, confidential conversations, access to e-mail and text messages and closed groups on Facebook, VG gained insight into the dramatic play that took place on the five "tracks of hell" of the Famous Hareide speech September 28 and even party extraordinary country meeting November 2nd.

Ropstad: I was really in doubt

For VG, Ropstad admits he was simply in the mood for what he should do.

"In the days that followed Knut Arild's speech, I thought I would be willing to defend what I stood for, with the certainty that he would probably stop if he did not get used to it." I was really in doubt about what to do. When I wrote the chronicle of VG October 10 I had not decided, says Ropstad.

"Internally, did you say you expected Hareide to win?"

"I could have said that, yes," says Ropstad.

Although Ropstad's ruthless stance during the first two weeks of the KrF power struggle created peace and tranquility on the red field, developing a strategy that would give Hareide victory, Ropstad's passivity caused great turmoil in the upper leadership.

Very soon, the turmoil turned into pure panic.

Total right unprepared

Højer's management stated very much that they had not previously understood what plans Hareide had. They read the whole picture wrong. Now they were unprepared for the whole situation and did not know what to do to influence the process.

If the Hareide line progressed, the bourgeois government would be launched. Erna Solberg's career would be over. Everything was at stake.

But suddenly the whole game changed completely.

After meeting at SMK, Ropstad turned 180 degrees:

Vice-chairmen Bent Høie and Jan Tore Sanner also attended the meeting with the two vice-presidents of the Danish KrF, among others. Several topics were discussed during the meeting, including the abortion law. Everyone around the table knew that Støre could never match a possible change in the abortion act.

Relax pump

However, it would be four days after the meeting at SMK before Ropstad left the bomb at a meeting of members in Hordaland KrF, which took place in Bethlehem-built for Bergen Indremission Monday 15 October.

Here, Ropstad first drew both paragraph 2c, as twinning and biotechnology as three areas he believed KrF could achieve with the right.

"We have a good negotiating position if we go to Solberg, and we know that government parties are more receptive to our demands than Ap. … These are things I think we can only win if we are Erna Solberg," said Ropstad.

Hareide himself was present in the hall and was very surprised by the speech of Ropstad, which he perceived to have emerged with all new energy – and a new argument from the crown.

"I can not remember anyone mentioning paragraph 2C of the Abortion Law in this case before I belong to Kjell Ingolf's speech on October 15," Hareide told VG, adding,

"As long as I am a parliamentary representative, we never suggest a proposal to change that section," he said.

It was perceived as fraud

Team Hareide was in shock.

"Knut Arild was licked after Kjell Ingolf's speech," a source said.

"It was a betrayal," says a central source on the red side.

Others on the red side of KrF use even stronger expressions to describe the great turnaround of Ropstad.

When Ropstad told the councilor closest to Hareide that he expected, in essence, that the party leader would win, it had been a week and a half since Hareide's speech.

So far, the red side had until the grades were on the offensive. Hareide's blond face dominated the media. The party leader was honored by many to make an unexpected and refreshing choice.

The blue side seemed disorganized and somewhat effective in public debate.

And where was Ropstad, the best card the blue side had? In the party to fight for KrF to enter the government with the right, Frp and Left?

No, over the weekend after Hareide's shocking speech, on 6 and 7 October, Ropstad preferred to go hunting with his brother, a cousin, and an uncle in Evje in Agder.

Wanted that Hareide should win

In "Team Hareide" the weather was fine Monday, October 8. The clarification of Ropstad gives them work.

"On the red side, we put all our strategy into the perception that Ropstad would not challenge Hareide's leadership because he had said it explicitly.He told the others that he wanted Hareide to win.All, therefore, hoped that Ropstad would change his mind, recommending that people support the party leader's recommendation and thus gather the party behind Hareide at the country's meeting, says a source who followed the process inside.

In the Hareide team, there were also people who warned against Ropstad insurance for good fish. One of them was Øystein Mjærum, political advisor to Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik from 2001 to 2005, and now director of communications and market for the Norwegian Red Cross.

Highly, who is an almost casual advocate for Hareide, a bloody power struggle smelled a long way.

But Hareide's right hand, Emil Andre Erstad, showed Ropstad's statements in Hareide's office. They should not misunderstand, he pointed out.

"He does not lie to me," Erstad pointed out in internal meetings.

Conscious Choice

Erstad also said that Ropstad had said that it was a "conscious" choice that he had not "painted in a corner" until then with his support for the blue side. This was also interpreted as if Ropstad had no plans to take the fight against Hareide in full.

Hareide himself chose at this point to make the Erstad assessments the basis for further progress.

The crucial meeting between Ropstad and Bollestad and Høyres was notified to Hareide in advance. According to Bollestad, Erna posed "an entire battalion" at the meeting.

It was a crisis meeting in the correct sense of the word:

According to the sources of the VG, Ropstad, in front of the leadership of the party Høyres, the brutal drama that was about to play inside the KrF:

That Knut Arild Hareide would lose if he lost the leadership of the party's extraordinary national meeting and that it would be himself and Bollestad who would meet for government negotiations – not Hareide.

Ropstad also said it was not clear that the blue team won. And whose blue side won, it would probably be with little margin. Then it would be a weakened and divided KrF that would negotiate with the government of Erna Solberg.

The meeting is characterized by absolute secrecy also following the KrF script. Several VG sources talked about whether the meeting reacts with a strict mask and irritating rejection of VG's questions.

Ropstad: Must have great victories

In an interview with VG, Kjell Ingolf Ropstad talks about the meeting with Solberg:

"For me, it was to imagine the constitution of the party in whose Knut Arild was lost. It would be that Knut Arild would not be able to take the party to these negotiations that the party would be quite divided, that not everyone in the party would work at a party to succeed in negotiations with her and that I could become who would have to lead these negotiations, he says.

– What did you say about the political victories you can have?

"I said that if there is a majority government, KrF can only have a four percent impact. Because the party will be so divided, we should get particularly good results for the project to bring to the party," says Ropstad.

VG reviewed interviews, video recording of lectures and the entire post of Ropstad and Bollestad until the meeting with the management of Høyres. Nowhere do the two deputies conclude their arguments on humanity to apply the act of abortion, paragraph 2c.

Tankesmie plays in

But already on the day after the secret meeting, a change takes place internally around Ropstad:

Then Ropstad was contacted by Filip Rygg, who currently heads the Ministry of Christian Thought, Creator Power, but is an experienced KrF politician who was, among other things, KrF City Council in Bergen from 2009 to 2015.

Rupstad told Ropstad that the Christian organization "Human worth" worked in the media on the Abortion Law and sent an outline of the Human Rights press release entitled "KrF should define sortingultimatum." VG knows that "human value" had worked since October 2 with this tour.

As opposed to VG, Rygg will not answer questions if you have direct contact with key figures right at this time.

Meeting with the Høre administration quickly gained consequences. On the following weekend, Ropstad sat at home with his wife Arnbjørg in Vulkan, Oslo, and wrote the speech he would be holding at the crucial council council meetings in the following weeks.

Closed with changes in abortion

In these numbers, the abortion act and the section 2c amendment requirement were a very central place.

"You are going to think on October 27th: I have agreed to make changes to this legislation – to create a community with space for absolutely everyone," said Ropstad. extraordinary annual meeting in Hordaland KrF.

At the same time, Ropstad collaborated with the Right on a media strategy in which he would challenge Solberg and the leader of Ap Jonas Gahr Støre if they were open to changes in the Abortion Law, which would soon be followed by Solberg with a welcoming tone .

VG knows there has been close and continuous contact between Ropstad and the Prime Minister's office in this strategy, planned to the smallest detail.

Three things in one day

On Thursday, October 18, VG published three things on the abortion issue on an ongoing basis:

First an interview with the organization "Human worth" as KrF urged silent ultimatum on abortionas Ropstad knew six days ago.

Later that day, Ropstad went to VG and Ask Solberg and Støre to clarify their opinions.

A minute before 18:00 this Thursday, VG published the interview with Erna Solberg, who opened to negotiate the abortion act.

The abortion was in progress.

Violation of the rules of the game

To his closest supporters, Hareide said that this was a violation of the rules of the game that the three in the party leadership had previously agreed: that this should be the "KrF process" – and that therefore you should not interfere with other parts, something that Ropstad has now done quite openly.

Hareide also said that it did not make much sense for Ropstad – weeks before the conclusion of the national meeting – to take a stand and initiate "government media negotiations."

This development really liked Hareide. The VG is aware that the party leader regarding his closest supporters said he was "provoking" that Ropstad left and asked Erna Solberg and Jonas Gahr Støre to get on the track for abortion.

Blue side stairs up

The blue side was also on the offensive in the fight for KrF's future. The next day Hareide made his famous speech on September 28, Martine Tønnessen, KrFU leader and central government official Tove Welle Haugland has created the closed Facebook group "Martine's 30th Anniversary".

There they shared news, strategic reports and rumors with others who wanted the blue team to win. Others who participated actively in the group were the advisor to the First House and former KrF politician Julian Farner-Calvert and the former KrF City Council, Filip Rygg. Ropstad and Bollestad were not members.

Another central player on the blue side was Ropstad's close friend and friend Rahim Nicolay Ali. There he served as Ropstad's advisor in the KrF parliamentary group and as councilor for Krf City Council, Filip Rygg in Bergen.

At the Hareide camp, the weather was very stressed as a result of the abortion game. Solberg's open attitude aroused enthusiasm among many KrFs. It was only two days before one of the party's biggest party, Rogaland KrF, held its extraordinary annual meeting and selected 16 delegates. Delegates went to the country meeting to vote for the KrF leadership.

After Hareide's overwhelming defeat on November 2, his supporters were very clear that he was annual meeting in Rogaland KrF that the battle was lost. Hareide missed just four voices to stop the blue win. These four he lost in just Rogaland.

For seriousness

Thursday before Rogaland's meeting, Hareide and his followers understood the seriousness. The atmosphere was now electric throughout the central KrF environment.

Throughout the country there were reports that local laws had begun to send whole delegations of blues or whole reds to the annual meetings of their respective countries. The situation was about to get out of control.

On Friday, October 19, KrF secretary-general, former Minister of State Hilde Frafjord Johnson, wrote an e-mail with a detailed proposal on how the counties should conduct their reconciliation. Johnson wanted Hareide to take the rest of the party leadership to e-mail all councils before they held their annual meetings.

The next day, the climate of Hareide's camp became frantic:

They had been informed that Ropstad had told his neighbor that he was certain that his vision would be won at the national meeting and that Rogaland KrF, as the first county team, was likely to elect a blue delegation for the meeting. parents.

Reliable with "Røros"

The information came in a group chat called "Team Knut Arild." Among the participants in the chat were the former Hareide adviser and now employed at the oil company Agna's consulting firm Marit Brandt Lågøyr, KrF Secretary-Secretary Dag Ivar Belck-Olsen, Hareide Adviser Emil Erstad and Secretary- General of KrF, Hilde Frafjord Johnson.

"So Knut Arild should get into KI (Ropstad, reporter) that he wants a battlefield for a party to take over. They can not make a clean table when everyone knows that the attitudes are shared in the county.If this procedure is followed, becomes Røros, "Hilde Frafjord Johnson wrote in the chat group as a response to information.

With "Røros," Johnson pointed to the most famous party divided in modern times – when a large part of the delegates left the Venster National Assembly Hall in Røros in 1972 to start a new party.

On Friday night, Hareide addressed her two deputies with two different suggestions of emails that could be sent from one-party leadership to all county teams.

The only e-mail consisted of Frafjord Johnson's detailed voting proposal, but without Hareide announcing that the proposal came from her.

In the second proposal, the party leadership simply said that it would be "sensible to try to reflect the attitudes of city councils in choosing delegates." Hareide's e-mails were sent to Ropstad and Bollestad at 6:22 p.m.

You are not welcome in Rogaland.

Only after three hours did Bollestad answer. Meanwhile, there was a hectic activity on the scenes in Rogaland KrF:

VG knows that among key Rogaland KrF figures there was a deep concern that Knut Arild Hareide would appear – without warning – at the annual county team meeting the next day, in an attempt to persuade the county to support his guidance.

The reason for the nervousness was due, for example, to a previously unknown decision of the committee in Rogaland KrF. Two days after Hareide's famous speech on the country's council on Sunday, September 30, the county work committee held an extraordinary meeting.

There they decided that Knut Arild Hareide and Kjell Ingolf Ropstad were not welcome at the county's extraordinary annual meeting. Thus, only Bollestad, who is of Rogaland, was authorized to come.

Another new issue was how delegates should be chosen. If the blue majority is to use majority force to send only blue delegates to the country meeting or the minority should be represented.

In confidential conversations, former Stavanger KrF candidate Marie Ljones Brekke said Krf's deputy Olaug Bollestad should have said that "it should not be a cause" and asked her to ensure that Stavanger KrF only sent blue delegates to the county council meeting. – in response to the fact that Sandnes KrF had only sent red.

"This is a statement without teams, and nothing I have said," Bollestad wrote in an email to VG.

During some hectic hours on Friday night, the decision was made that Rogaland KrF should outperform the red and work for an exclusively blue delegation. The central part of the decision was also the first vice-president of Rogaland KrF, Reid-Ivar Dahl.

In Oslo, Olaug Bollestad sent on the same evening his reply to the two emails proposed by Hareide. She wanted the short variant without any detailed guidance for the county teams. It was agreed that KrF communications manager Mona Høvset should send the e-mail to the city council the following morning.

In addition, Høvset sent a text message to Bollestad and Hareide on Friday night. In the message, Høvset wrote: "Olaug is going to Rogaland tomorrow and can broadcast the message there as well, since it is too late for them."

«The winner takes everything»

On the morning of October 20, just hours before the extraordinary annual meeting in Rogaland KrF, Ropstad's lover, Ali, posted a post on the Facebook group "Martine's 30th anniversary." He urged all blue to work for a strategy where blue counties would send exclusively blue delegations to the country meeting. The strategy was named "winner takes everything".

"My clear advice based on the numbers we're seeing now is that everyone who wants the blue, and especially in counties with a clear blue majority, should definitely argue that" the winner takes it all, "shortened WTA. will be concerned about mirroring the last annual meetings before LM if they know that these delegates will become the majority, "Ali wrote in the group.

Annual Meeting in Rogaland KrF ended up sending 15 blue delegates and 1 red. Bollestad took the floor during the meeting, but chose not to inform the annual e-mail meeting of a general party leadership the night before. Instead, she just said,

"Trust has been a part of the debate, we've tried to have an open debate, there's been a suspicion of kupping here and there, and now we have to make sure that what we do locally, part of it was not sensible and we'll have legitimacy later. for you to think about it, "Bollestad said.

After the meeting he wrote TV Commentator 2 Mathias Fischer that Bollestad "barely raised a finger to influence his own county team to follow the advice" and "today, Bollestad was not loyal to his own leader."

In an internal chat group for KrF management and communications consultants, Dagger Fedøy shared Fischer's comment and wrote: "There are gross statements against you from Fischer, Olaug.If they are not correct, they should be addressed" .

– lie on white

Bollestad counted on the accusations, but soon after, Ropstad replied – who was not in the meeting:

"This is a blank lie." Jorunn (counselor Jorunn Hallaråker, journalist) now and she confirms – after also checking with the delegates – that Olaug was in the lecture chair and emphasized that she wanted the delegates to reflect the hall. One of you should try to correct the information, "Ropstad wrote.

Bollestad writes today in an email to VG about the progress:

"I mean to convey everything that was in the administration's mail and that is what Mona asked: 1. I did not leave the vote, nor did I vote on any of the voting proposals, as the correspondence said. of the county as far as possible to reflect the opinions of the public.I even received questions from NTB afterwards, as I felt the room had not heard me and my advice, "she writes.

At the same time, the fight against the strategy "The winner takes everything" was in full swing within the blue field. Opposite several of whom VG talked to, Ropstad gave mixed signals about whether he wanted representative delegations or the "winner's take it all" strategy.

During the week, he argued strongly that his blue defenders would use the power of the majority. The disagreement was particularly large before Agder KrF annual meetingFriday, October 26.

In the days leading up to the meeting, several supporters including Tove Welle Haugland and Rahim Nicolay Ali decided to affirm Ropstad's recommendation and worked hard to get the majority of delegates to the Agder Annual Meeting for the county to send only blue delegates.

But then, the night before the meeting, Ropstad made a strict warning: he did not want a blue delegation. The reason was the fear of division and that would trigger the Hareide Alliance to mobilize against the use of a possible red majority in Akershus, Oslo and Vestfold to send red delegations. So the battle would probably be lost to the blue side.

Done dead

At the last minute, the strategy was launched and Agder sent 13 blue and five red delegates.

For the national meeting on Friday, November 2, both camps of Hareide and Ropstads were very nervous. The blue side had a clear advantage of the delegates, according to all media accounts and internal calculations. but Hareide's camp worked hard to try to repent more. to vote in red or in white.

To counteract this, Ropstad's actor, Ali, created a closed Facebook chat that was christened "Thanksgiving 2018". In this, all blue county leaders and other "safe" blue delegates were added. At most, the chat consisted of more than 70 blue delegates.

In the group, rumors and news surfaced during the national meeting, so everyone in the blue field would look like information along the way. After the blue side emerged victorious from the country meeting, many people chose to leave the group.

Increase interference

Among the allies of Knut Arild Hareide, there are also several who suspect that Høryr's involvement in the party process was much more extensive than hitherto known. An example that several draw on the VG is a video that has become posted on YouTube on October 15 by an anonymous user. The video documents how Hareide in the election campaign said he went to the elections in Solberg as prime minister.

The video was first publicized on social media by former chief of staff and secretary of state Erna Solberg, now managing director of the Federation of Machine Providers, Julie M. Brodtkorb. She shared that. your facebook page.

Brodtkorb claims that she does not know who made the video.

VG investigated publication dates, which shows that Brodtkorb shared YouTube's anonymous user video only 2.5 minutes after its publication on YouTube.

"I did not follow the time I went or something." I have a very busy job and I do not have time for this.

"But it's too short …?"

"If this is the only thing you imagine, then I have nothing else to say. Have, Brodtkorb said and dressed.

VG presented the full text in the case of VG for Kjell Ingolf Ropstad.

In an email he writes:

"My goal is to make the most of KrF policy, and I think we are going to welcome Erna Solberg, not Jonas Gahr Støre and SV.

There are several problems in the case that I do not recognize.

Nor can I understand how they interpreted me the way they worked around that I would have been relieved of Knut Arild. This was about me and the situation of my family and that would be a challenging situation at the party. I believe in everyone now and now that this meant that I needed time to decide how much I would fight for what I believe. My message internally and externally has been that delegations should reflect the county teams – especially as this will make it easier for the party to move forward.

I never doubted that the right thing for KrF would be to cooperate right. What I was not sure was how much I should fight the subject. "