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Kapital: Hadia Tajik is Norway’s most powerful woman

Photo: Ole Berg-Rusten / NTB

Labor Party (AP) deputy leader and minister Hadia Tajik tops Kapital’s list of Norway’s most powerful women. She is the first with an immigrant background to top the list.

From 2013 until last year, Prime Minister and Conservative Party (H) leader Erna Solberg has been at the top. However, the change of government means that eight new women are among the top ten on the list. Solberg can be found in seventh place this year.

“While women have been given somewhat less power at the very top of Norwegian politics, they exercise all the more power at ministerial level and in the Norwegian parliament (Storting),” Kapital’s editor Vibeke Holth said in a press release.

Political flair like few others

With the top spot, Tajik breaks a historical barrier, according to Holth.

“Previously, she has been the youngest minister in Norway and the first Muslim minister. Now she is the first woman with an immigrant background to go to the top of Kapital’s list of Norway’s most powerful women. As far as we know, there has never been a more powerful woman with an immigrant background in Norway,” the editor said.

“But Tajik is first and foremost a lawyer, and former journalist, with political flair like few others. And a raw exerciser of power. As Minister of Labor, she is responsible for the NAV with a budget corresponding to one third of the state budget. The post of minister, with a unique opportunity to please the powerful LO, is considered the perfect springboard for a future prime ministerial career,” Kapital writes.

Tajik is followed by Marit Arnstad, the Center Party’s (SP) parliamentary leader, and LO (Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions) leader Peggy Hessen Følsvik. In fourth place is Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt (AP).

FHI director is high on the list

The Norwegian Institute of Public Health’s (FHI) director Camilla Stoltenberg is in fifth place.

“Stoltenberg and FHI’s knowledge, advice, and recommendations have been crucial for the authority’s infection control measures. She has therefore had an enormous influence on Norwegians’ everyday lives over the past year and a half,” Kapital writes.

On paper, the President of the Storting is the country’s highest-ranked person after members of the royal family. The current President of the Storting, Eva Kristin Hansen (AP), is in 14th place on Kapital’s list.

“The reason why Hansen is not higher up is that we look at real, and not formal, power when we vote for Norway’s most powerful women. In reality, we believe that many women exercise more power than Hansen on a daily basis, both in the government and in the Storting,” Kapital’s editor Holth said.

Source: © NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today / #NorwayTodayNews

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