Norway’s defense minister has resigned after an affair with an 18-year-old woman came to light.
The Norwegian defense minister has resigned, the government announced on Saturday, after an affair with a woman several years younger than him came to light. “It is a necessary decision,” Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store said at a press conference on Saturday morning, where he confirmed that he had accepted Mr Enoksen’s resignation.
“I made wrong choices (…) and I will apologize unconditionally” because “my actions have made other people’s lives more difficult,” Odd Roger Enoksen had told the agency a little earlier. Norwegian press NTB.
Mr Enoksen started a relationship in 2005 with an 18-year-old high school student he had met during a school trip the latter had taken with her class in Oslo, according to the Norwegian daily VG. The group of students had visited the Norwegian Parliament and met Mr Enoksen, then a 50-year-old parliamentarian.
He “used his power to get what he wanted”
After the school trip, the politician and the high school student started what would become a very close and sexual relationship, says VG. They met at least 12 times in Mr Enoksen’s office between late 2006 and 2007 when he was Energy Minister, the woman, now in her thirties, testified to the paper, claiming that some of these encounters resulted in “sexual acts “.
She also spoke of her admiration for the politician, saying he “used his power and position to get what he wanted”. However, when the ex-minister confirmed with VG the young woman’s visits to his office, as well as discussions of an obscene nature, he denied any physical overtures. The relationship only became intimate after he left the government in 2007, he insisted, saying it was not a relationship “where I had power over her”.
The prime minister told reporters that Mr Enoksen had not informed him of the affair before he was appointed defense minister in October last year, adding that this information would have led to a “different conclusion”. The head of government added that he wanted to find a new defense minister as soon as possible.
