Usman Mushtaq from Stovner wants to become Oslo’s new city council leader and is being touted by TV 2 as the Labour Party’s new rising star. The 37-year-old is a qualified doctor and works as a state secretary in the Støre government. Six years ago, the Labour Party politician served as an adviser to the Pakistani government for just over a year. Zeshan Shakar, also from Stovner, hopes Mushtaq can become Oslo’s answer to Mamdani.
This is how he intends to run Oslo
“We must win back our city,” wrote Usman Mushtaq on Facebook in early October, sharing an article in *Dagsavisen* with the headline This is how he wants to run Oslo.
Mushtaq is not the only candidate aiming to fulfil the Labour Party’s goal of wresting the leadership of Oslo City Council from the Conservative Party in the autumn 2027 election. The stage is set for a power struggle within the Oslo Labour Party, as veteran politician Marthe Scharning Lund (50) has also been nominated by the party. The nomination committee of the Oslo Labour Party has been unable to reach a decision and, in its initial recommendation, has listed both Scharning Lund and Mushtaq as potential lead candidates.
The two candidates nominated by the Labour Party in Oslo as city council candidates. Left: Marthe Scharning Lund, who wants to raise the Palestinian flag at Oslo City Hall with fellow party member Abdullah Alsabeehg. Right: the TV2 report on Usman Mushtaq. They posted this on Facebook, but appear to have removed it again. Perhaps there were too many comments. Screenshots.
The Labour Party’s rising star
TV 2 has run a major feature on Usman Mushtaq, calling him the Labour Party’s new rising star, in a major Saturday profile. Headline: Mushtaq from Stovner is the Labour Party’s new rising star: – Hoping he’ll become Oslo’s Mamdani.
The channel met Mushtaq outside the Ministry of Health, where he works as State Secretary to the Minister of Health and the Labour Party’s Deputy Leader, Jan Christian Vestre.
– “I think it’s important that when you have an ambition to work for the people, you also seek positions where the public can place their trust in you,” Mushtaq told TV 2.
He has previously served as an adviser to Jonas Gahr Støre in the Storting, and as a city councillor in Oslo under Raymond Johansen. Gro Harlem Brundtland is his guiding light.
– “I was very interested in public health and global health as a medical student. And back then, Gro was my great role model,” he says.
Work for the Pakistani government
Mushtaq studied medicine, like Gro, and had just finished his district rotation in Rælingen when, in 2019, he was contacted by Pakistan’s Minister of Health, Zafar Mirza, with a request to become his adviser in Islamabad.
We don’t know why a Minister of Health would recruit a relatively newly qualified doctor who grew up in Stovner in Oslo with his parents and five siblings. However, Mushtaq had been involved in Gunhild Stordalen’s EAT project for some time (which was wound up in February 2026), and had met the Pakistani minister previously, according to an article in the Journal of the Norwegian Medical Association.
Zafar had previously worked at the WHO, and I had met him on a couple of occasions. He had been following some of my work, particularly with EAT, and wondered if I could join the team. That week I was actually on my way to New York for an EAT meeting, but I rebooked and travelled to Pakistan to discuss the possibility. It was a challenge to secure a position, as I wasn’t a Pakistani citizen, but it all worked out in the end, he tells Tidssriftet, in the article The boy who wanted to change the world.
The doctor from Stovner worked for the Pakistani government from 2019 to 2021, according to Tidsskriftet.
Dagsrevyen produced a report from Pakistan
NRK also travelled there in October 2020 to produce a heart-warming report for Dagsrevyen on how a Pakistani man from Oslo secured a position at the highest political level in Pakistan, and also accompanied Usman Mushtaq when he visited his relatives in a Pakistani village, where living conditions were somewhat simpler than those of the government in Islamabad.
NRK Dagsrevyen produced a Saturday profile when Usman Mushtaq was working for the Pakistani government. Broadcast on 24 October 2020. Screenshot from NRK.
It was NRK veteran Sidsel Wold who produced the report from Pakistan. On Saturday, she shared the report along with a message to Mushtaq, now that he’s in the spotlight in various media outlets.
“Hi Usman! It’s exciting to follow your progress in Norwegian politics. But did you know that it’s exactly six years ago (!) that we made the report from when you were working as an adviser to the Minister of Health in Pakistan? It’s lovely to see it again,” wrote Wold on Facebook.
Mushtaq thanked her profusely, writing, “Thank you so much, Sidsel, it was great to have you visit Islamabad.”
NRK was also there when Usman Mushtaq visited his relatives in the Pakistani village. It looks as though both of them, including reporter Sidsel Wold, were given flowers. Screenshot from NRK.
Working for the Norwegian government
Mushtaq no longer works for the Pakistani government, but for the Norwegian one. Usman Mushtaq is, in fact, a State Secretary in Jonas Gahr Støre’s Labour Party government.
Curiously enough, the NRK report in 2020 began in much the same way as the TV 2 profile this weekend.
“Mushtaq grew up on Tante Ulrikkes vei in Stovner,” TV 2 said now.
“Usman Mushtaq (31), a doctor, from Tante Ulrikkes vei in Stovner, Oslo,” said NRK in its introduction at the time. And added: “Last year, he was headhunted by Pakistan’s Minister of Health to reform the healthcare system.”
That very spot in Stovner is so central that TV 2 also managed to arrange a meeting between Mushtaq and Zeshar Shakar, who wrote the novel *Tante Ulrikkes vei* in 2017. In other words, the channel took Mushtaq from the posh western district of Frogner, where he now lives, back to the simpler circumstances of his childhood in Stovner. There they met Shakar, an author who has also moved away.
Hoping Mushtaq will become Oslo’s Mamdani
The TV channel meets the two at the Stovner Centre, where the conversation gradually turns to the idea that Mushtaq could become Oslo’s answer to New York’s first Muslim mayor, Zohran Mamdani. Mushtaq’s fellow writer hopes so.
– Do you see him as Oslo’s answer to Mamdani?
– In the sense that he can represent something new and bring fresh ideas to the table, then I hope so, says Shakar.
– He’s quite impatient. And very curious, he adds.
– What do you think about him moving to Frogner, then?
– Everyone should be free to live exactly where they want. I don’t live in Stovner either. I don’t think we should read too much into it, says the author, whose father is from Pakistan.
We don’t know who will win and become the candidate for leader of the Oslo Labour Party. Whether it will be Usman Mushtaq or Marthe Scharning Lund.
The last local elections are described as a disaster. The Labour Party achieved its worst result in Oslo since the war. The Labour Party’s support in Oslo stood at a historically low 18.4 per cent in 2023. But Mushtaq remains confident. The key to winning back voters and taking power from the Conservative Party in Oslo lies in Groruddalen, Mushtaq believes.
“If we win Groruddalen, we can win the city,” he tells TV 2.
In other words, this immigrant neighbourhood could decide the local election in Norway’s capital.
