Left city council member: Will propose secret ballot on Troels Lund Poulsen's future

Politics ( https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/politik )

***************************************************************************************

*Venstre city council member:* Will propose secret ballot on Troels Lund Poulsen's future

***************************************************************************************

- It is untimely and wrong for a city council member to go to the press with this wish instead of raising it internally, says the chair of Venstre in the Region of Southern Denmark.

City council member for Venstre in Aabenraa Municipality, Eivind Underbjerg Hansen, will propose a secret ballot on the party leadership position in Venstre when the national conference is held this coming weekend. (Photo: © DR) Today at 7:09 PM

If it were up to Eivind Underbjerg Hansen, a Venstre city council member in Aabenraa Municipality, the party should hold a secret and written ballot on the leadership position when the national conference takes place in Herning this weekend.

As a delegate, he will put forward the proposal to get clarity on whether Troels Lund Poulsen has real support to remain as party leader.

- I will do this because we need to see how much support the leader has for the course he is pursuing. I am not entirely satisfied with that course, because I want there to be room for open debate and a high tolerance for dissent, says Eivind Underbjerg Hansen to DR.

He does not believe that his proposal will create further unrest in Venstre. Quite the opposite:

- If there is a leadership challenge now, the party will be split in two, and we should avoid that. But in this way, we can get an indication of what the members want, he says.

--------------------------------------

Not well received by party colleagues

--------------------------------------

The statement, which Eivind Underbjerg Hansen himself sent out in a press release, meets opposition from other sides of the party. The chair of Venstre in the Region of Southern Denmark, Birthe Kargaard, writes on her Facebook profile:

- I think it is both untimely and wrong for a single city council member to go directly to the press with this wish instead of raising it internally in Venstre.

The chair of Venstre in the Region of Southern Denmark, Birthe Kargaard, does not agree that there is a need for a secret ballot on the leadership position in Venstre. (Photo: © DR)

Eivind Underbjerg Hansen responds that Birthe Kargaard is entitled to her own opinion.

- I cannot see that it is untimely to ask for a written ballot. Is there something to hide, or are they afraid of the result? I don't know what her reasoning is, he says.

The chair of Venstre in Fredericia Municipality, Søren Schou, is surprised by the proposal, which he distances himself from:

- I think it is a very bad path to go down, to start having secret ballots. There will be plenty of speaking time at the national conference where people can speak out against the leadership if they oppose it, he says.

Facebook ( https://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=undefined )

Warning: This article was translated by a Large Language Model, in case of doubt, you can always visit the original source.