Trond Giske

Trond Giske (born 7 November 1966) is a Norwegian politician who served as deputy leader of the Labour Party from 2015 until his resignation in 2018 after accusations of widespread sexual harassment and sexual assault against multiple women. After renewed allegations in 2020 he announced his complete and permanent withdrawal from politics. In 2024 he returned to politics, becoming the deputy leader of the Trondheim Labour Party. In 2025, he was once more elected to the Storting.

Giske was elected into the Norwegian parliament for Sør-Trøndelag county in 1997, and served as Minister of Education and Church Affairs in the first cabinet of Jens Stoltenberg from 2000 to 2001, as Minister of Culture and Church Affairs in Stoltenberg's Second Cabinet from 2005 to 2009 and as Minister of Trade and Industry from 2009 to 2013. As a cabinet member he several times faced accusations of cronyism by having appointed little-qualified close friends to well paid government jobs, which also led to formal inquiries into his actions in the Standing Committee on Scrutiny and Constitutional Affairs.

In December 2017, during the Me Too controversy triggered by the allegations against Harvey Weinstein, Giske was accused of an extensive pattern of sexual harassment and sexual assault of young women, leading to the so-called Giske affair, which dominated Norwegian media for several weeks. After admitting to some of the accusations against him, Giske was asked to permanently resign by party leader Jonas Gahr Støre on 1 January 2018, which he subsequently did on 7 January 2018 shortly before the party executive committee were to debate the matter and shortly before Støre was about to state publicly that Giske needed to resign. On 25 January 2018 the Labour Party ruled that Giske had violated the party's rules against sexual harassment and that his behaviour disqualified him from holding offices or positions of trust in the party. In response Giske sought legal assistance against his own party. He faced intense criticism when seeking election as chairman of a local party branch in 2020, and as a result announced his withdrawal from politics. In 2023 Dagens Næringsliv reported that Giske had threatened the Labour Party with a lawsuit, resulting in a settlement where the party paid his legal expenses and wrote a letter as demanded by Giske which said that the party leadership couldn't rule out the possibility of a comeback.

In August 2024, Giske announced his intentions of a comeback to national politics and he was seeking the top nomination spot from Sør-Trøndelag for the Labour Party. Giske won the rights to be suggested for the top spot for the upcoming nomination meeting for Sør-Trøndelag electoral district by the Trondheim Labour Party, despite several members of Trondheim Labour Party accusing Giske and his supporters of organizing a coup to let Giske get the top spot. Before the nomination meeting took place, Giske was more than once rejected from the nomination committee's recommendation. However, Giske won the nomination for top spot with 76 votes over Per Olav Skurdal Hopsø's 57 votes. Several candidates withdrew from the nomination list following Giske's victory, including all candidates from the Trøndelag Workers' Youth League (AUF). Giske was elected to the Storting once more in 2025 and thus he had returned to national politics.