Siv Jensen

At 55 years old, Siv Jensen physical status not available right now. We will update Siv Jensen's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

Siv Jensen (born 1 June 1969) is a Norwegian politician who has served as Minister of Finance since 2013 and Chair of the Progress Party since 2006.

She has been a member of the Norwegian parliament since 1997. Jensen was born and raised in Oslo and obtained a degree in business studies from the Norwegian School of Economics.

She was first elected to parliament in 1997 and has since been re-elected for four terms in a row.

She chaired the parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs from 2001 to 2005, and then took over as the head of the Progress Party in 2006. In the 2009 parliamentary election, Jensen was the Progress Party's nominee for Prime Minister, which saw historic high marks for the party.

She favored the chances of a coalition government led by the Conservative Party and led her party into the Solberg Cabinet in 2013, the first time government participation in the Progress Party. Jensen is Norway's longest-serving Minister of Finance since World War II, as of October 2019.

Early life and education

Siv Jensen was born in Oslo to Tore Jensen (1926-1989), as well as Monica Kjelsberg (1939), the former owners of a shoe store in Oslo during her childhood. Although she believes that her neighborhood was a great place to grow up, her house was the site of several burglaries. Around 1980, her parents were divorced, and her father followed her to Sweden shortly. Her mother was active in the Ullern Progress Party for a brief period of time before discovering that politics was "not her thing."

Jensen attended upper secondary school in Oslo's Frogner district after finishing Marienlyst elementary school in 1985. She enrolled in the Norwegian School of Economics afterwards, receiving her degree in business studies in 1992. She worked as a radio consultant for Radio 1 from 1992 to 1994, before shifting her attention to politics full-time.

According to her, her civic interest was ignited at her elementary school Marienlyst, where class discussions were common. Two students from the Socialist Youth would attend these sessions, one being her socialist-turned-best friend. Jensen, on the other hand, was firmly opposed to their views as a child. She joined the Progress Party in 1988, in part because she was introduced to the group by her mother. She had been a Young Conservative activist for about a week before joining the party.

Personal life

Jensen's younger brother, businessman Tom Einar Jensen, and one younger sister, Nina Jensen, former CEO of WWF, are among the three half-sisters. Norway is located in Norway. Betzy Kjelsberg, the early feminist feminist, was her great-grandmother. Jensen was once engaged but she has never married.

Jensen has said he is a "proud member of the Church of Norway," while still having reservations about certain Christian beliefs. She has chastised church leaders for getting too involved in politics, particularly in relation to certain church figures' outspoken opposition to Norwegian oil exploration.

A biography on Siv Jensen was published in 2006, written by Martine Aurdal, founding editor of the feminist journal Fett, later chief editor of the left-wing news publication Ny Tid.

Source

Political career

Jensen has been a member of the Storting from the Oslo constituency since first being elected in 1997, while having served as a deputy representative from 1993 to 1997. As she was appointed to the government cabinet in 2013, deputy representative Mazyar Keshvari has met as a regular member in her place. From 2001 to 2005 Jensen chaired the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs, having been a member of the committee since 1997, and from 2005 to 2013 she was a member of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence. She played a central role in budget negotiations with the centrist government of Kjell Magne Bondevik, and her work chairing the Finance Committee led her to become increasingly more profiled as a leader-figure within her party.

During the early 1990s conflict within the party between the younger libertarians and party chairman Carl I. Hagen, Jensen stood on the side of Hagen. She also supported Hagen in the 2001 internal conflict, and stated the same year that Hagen had been like a father figure for her. She became first deputy chairman of the Progress Party in 1998, and parliamentary leader of the party in 2005. In 2006, Carl I. Hagen, chairman of the party since 1978 resigned to become vice president of parliament, and Jensen assumed leadership of the Progress Party to no internal opposition. While many had been speculating about the viability of the party and its future after Hagen resigning, a 2004 survey showed that Jensen enjoyed better general support than him, which was explained by her not being as controversial. Many had also predicted a more moderate course for the party with her being the leader, but she stood firmly by the policies of the party. Her leadership-style has however been considered to be softer than that of Hagen.

In May 2009, Jensen held a lecture in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom at the invitation of Conservative Party MP Malcolm Rifkind. Media director Alex Try of the think tank Henry Jackson Society, who was responsible for the arrangement, said that the main background for the invitation was her "engagement in questions about terrorism and challenges attached to the multicultural society." Up to one-hundred MP's, business leaders and key persons in British politics was expected to show up at the arrangement. Jensen said that "we have much to learn from the British, but when it comes to the immigration policy I think Britain has failed completely".

As leader of the Progress Party, Jensen took the initiative to talks with Conservative Party leader Erna Solberg in early 2007, seeking to build a broad centre-right coalition for the 2009 election. Amid unresolved dispute among the centre-right parties, she launched herself as candidate for Prime Minister for the 2009 election and received a record share of the vote of 22.9%, although the parties combined ultimately lost out to the centre-left coalition.

In 2011, newspaper Aftenposten wrote that the Progress Party during Jensen's leadership, had experienced their "two best national elections". Ahead of the 2013 election Jensen continued working for a broad centre-right coalition, and endorsed Erna Solberg for Prime Minister. Although seeing its vote drop significantly, she led the Progress Party into government coalition talks for the first time in its history.

Following the other coalition parties’ decision to bring home an ISIS related woman and her sick child, Jensen announced on 20 January 2020 that her party was withdrawing from government in protest to the decision. Other reasons cited was that the party been unable to promote their policy in government, and Jensen stated "it’s not worth continuous losses". She, along with the other Progress Party ministers officially withdrew from the government on 24 January, marking the first time a party had withdrawn from government.

On 18 February 2021, Jensen announced that she would step down as party leader after a new one is elected at the party convention in May. She also said she would not be running for re-election in the September election. She cited her reasons to be to focus more on her personal life and family and pointed to Sylvi Listhaug as her preferred successor. Listhaug was subsequently designated her successor in late March, and was officially elected at the party convention on 8 May.

On 16 October 2013, Jensen was appointed Minister of Finance as the Progress Party joined a minority coalition government led by the Conservative Party, the party's first ever government participation. Jensen's first national budget included proposals of cutting taxes, and spending more of Norway's oil wealth, and she also appointed a committee to consider changes to the 4% budgetary rule of Oil Fund spending.

Source