Norway unveils new center-left minority government amid suspected terror attack
Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre presented the country’s new center-left minority government.
The leader of the Labor Party stood outside the country’s royal palace on Thursday alongside the ten women and nine men from his new cabinet.
The government is now presenting two politicians who survived the 2011 Utøya massacre as teenage union activists.
Tonje Brenna, 33, has been appointed to the education ministry, while Jan Christian Vestre, 35, will take over the business and industry portfolio.
Emilie Enger Mehl became Norway‘s youngest justice minister at the age of 28, while the foreign minister’s portfolio went to another woman, Anniken Scharning Huitfeldt.
Meanwhile, the leader of the Eurosceptic Center Party, Trygve Slagsvold Vedum, becomes finance minister.
The ceremony was overshadowed by the alleged terror attack on Wednesday, where a 37-year-old Dane killed five people with a bow and arrow.
The Norwegian Homeland Security Agency says the attack appears to have been an act of terrorism.
Gahr Støre said it was “a special day” because of the “scandalous event” in the small town of Kongsberg.
“It’s horrible what has been revealed, it’s shocking to think of what people went through,” he told reporters ahead of the swearing-in ceremony, pledging that the new cabinet fully examine the Kongsberg incident.
“Although the backdrop is heavy, it is still the day to present a new government,” Gahr Støre added to an enthusiastic crowd in Oslo.
The Labor leader also welcomed the appointment of two survivors of the 2011 terrorist attacks in Norway.
“Now that these talented young politicians carry this past, I think we have taken another important step and I am very proud of it,” said Støre.
The 61-year-old succeeded Conservative Prime Minister Erna Solberg overthrown in the September elections after eight years in office.
The Labor Party – the largest in Norway – won 26.3% of the vote while the Center Party finished third with 20.4%.
The new government has already unveiled its 83-page political program for 2021-2025, where climate and the environment are among the main areas of intervention.