Erna Solberg published her memoirs on Thursday. In them, she continues to cast doubt on Sylvi Listhaug. This is striking given that the Progress Party stands at 37 per cent and the Conservative Party is around 15 per cent.
– Whilst Siv Jensen’s aim was to bridge the divisions within the centre-right, Sylvi’s approach has been the opposite. She has created greater divisions within the centre-right, writes Erna Solberg on the way forward for the centre-right in Norwegian politics.
In the book, Solberg reviews the 2025 election defeat and the discussions surrounding Listhaug as a candidate for Prime Minister.
– I had absolutely no faith that Sylvi Listhaug could become Prime Minister. If we were to secure a centre-right majority in the election, we were dependent on both the Christian Democratic Party and the Liberal Party clearing the electoral threshold.
It was Sylvi Listhaug who was on the rise during the 2025 election campaign. When Erna publicly criticised Sylvi and promoted herself as prime minister, it came across as tactless and like a stab in the back. She thus alienated Progress Party voters.
Solberg’s assessment was that the Conservative Party, the Liberal Party and the Christian Democratic Party combined could be larger than the Progress Party.
‘And since Venstre and KrF were unlikely to want Sylvi at the helm, I would most likely have become Prime Minister with a centre-right majority,’ she writes.
Erna was number two in the election campaign, yet she wanted to be at the top.
She appears to have held a negative view of Listhaug for a long time.
Solberg also recounts the period when Listhaug was a minister in her government, before she became party leader. She explains that relations with the Progress Party and Listhaug reached a low point during the government’s strategy conference in January 2020.
“At that time, several other ministers told me that Sylvi was oozing negativity and that she absolutely refused to take part in discussions on how the government could take a proactive approach going forward,” she writes.
