TRONDHEIM (VG) Ap mayoral candidate destroys Høyre’s election promises – and believes they are not telling voters the whole truth. – Pure despair, replies Høyre.

– The Conservatives say they are ready to build bigger houses everywhere, but they must have a lower income to do so. I think it’s hard to see that this is at stake, says Emil Raaen, Ap’s candidate for Trondheim mayor.

VG meets him at his home in Moholt, where he discusses over a glass of Pepsi Max how he thinks the Conservative Party’s plans for Trondheim, governed by Labor mayor Rita Ottervik for 20 years, won’t work.

The same debate is taking place in Oslo: Municipal councilor Raymond Johansen demanded (Ap), in letter form, that the Conservative Party presents a calculation showing how to finance the Conservative Party’s property tax reduction.

– They do not say what they will take or how they will finance what they promise. We are now in advance voting and we still do not know the answer. I think voters deserve to know that, says Raaen.

Mayoral candidate Kent Ranum says the attack is in bad taste. Read his response further down in the case.

– No magic contours

Raaen refers to Høyre’s election promises in Trondheim. They have, among other things promised 250 million more crowns for the school, and 200 new man-years in the care of the elderly.

This is in addition to the Heimdal Health and Welfare Center project, which is part of the APS health escalation plan.

– This is more than we can afford – oddly enough, when the Conservative Party also wants to scrap the income base. You are starting to approach the billion in budget balance missing for the good measures they are supposed to have.

He points out that the Conservative Party’s candidate for mayor was recently quoted by Morgenbladet as saying that “he could imagine cutting property taxes in half” during the first term.

However, he corrected this by stating that it is something he would like to do, but it is not possible at the moment. The right party’s election promise is to at least freeze the property tax, and they want to reduce it in the long term.

– What is the magic formula that allows people with the lowest incomes to be able to give more to everyone? he asks and answers himself:

– I don’t think they can conjure, and I don’t see the outlines of magic either. When they try to explain it, the explanation changes very often.

– Must dry

The Conservative Party has said it wants more efficient financial management in Trondheim. Raaen says 80 percent of the budget is spent on education and health.

– The municipality buys for 5.5 billion. It is possible to buy cheaper, but what you buy today is meaningless. So you have to choose something and dare to say what it is. By not showing the other side of the coin, voters don’t really know what they will get after the election.

He accuses the right of saying “a side of butter in every way”, without voters knowing what they are getting.

– Voters are unsure whether there will be fewer property tax cuts than they have indicated, fewer investments in schools and health care than they propose, or whether there will completely different cuts that they didn’t talk about in the election campaign.

– They said they wanted to save money, among other things, by reducing sick leave?

– Yes, they also predicted that 63 million people would be healthier, without any explanation of how. It does not depend on the believers: he will be arrested.

– Stopped?

– The state administrator will arrest him if he does all this – then they will end up on the ROBEK list. They must limit their ambitions or find real proposals for budget cuts.

-Are you saying they are dishonest?

– People sometimes ask me if I don’t trust the right. So my question remains: which version should I trust? Regardless, I hope the Conservative Party obviously wants a right-wing policy and will have the ambition to resort to private solutions over time.

It’s true: – I’m bored

Conservative candidate for Trondheim mayor Kent Ranum reacts strongly to the Labor Party’s attack – and believes it is bad style.

– I’m bored, he wrote in one Facebook postwhere he writes that the two men agreed to talk about their own politics and not to make “false statements about each other.”

He responds to the criticism:

– This is pure desperation on Ap’s part. The only magic bullet in this matter is that Emil Raaen is apparently trying to bring up the fact that the Labor Party has ruled the municipality for 20 years and is responsible for the serious situation of schools, elderly care and highest property tax. of all major cities.

He points out that he himself has run companies that made a profit and where they didn’t spend more than they needed.

– The last thing Emil Raaen should worry about with me as mayor is safe financial management of the city. What he should be worried about is the chronic understaffing in schools and retirement homes, which has notably led Trondheim to 323rd place out of 356 municipalities in terms of health. And that too many people do not receive the help to which they are entitled at school.

He says the Conservative Party, as usual, will present its budget in which it will focus on coverage, and will prioritize more employees in aged care to reduce absences for “very expensive and exorbitant” disease.

– We are confident that the State Trustee will approve our budgets and avoid his involvement as we experienced when managing the PA regarding our school staff.

Watch the VG mayors’ duel from Trondheim on Monday here:

Correction: The first version of this story stated that Emil Raaen indicated that the Conservative Party wanted to cut property taxes in half over the next four years. The Conservative Party is going to the polls to freeze property taxes and wants to reduce them. Mayoral candidate Kent Ranum was recently quoted by Morgenbladet as saying that “he could imagine cutting the property tax in half” in the first term, but he corrected that by saying he would like to do that, but that it is not possible now. This is therefore specified in the file. The case was amended at 5:38 p.m. on September 9, 2023.