At 157 centimeters tall, Sisse Marie Welling does not tower over others. Or, as she herself put it when Politiken recently profiled her and she explained why she stood on a stool at a press conference:
»Sometimes I look like a miniature version of an adult.«
But in Copenhagen, she is now impossible to overlook. With a historic election victory in the capital, Sisse Marie Welling from SF has managed to wrest power from the Social Democrats and dethrone the party’s lead candidate, Pernille Rosenkrantz-Theil.
With Sisse Marie Welling as the new mayor, Copenhagen residents get a politician with extensive experience from City Hall. It has been 16 years since she was elected to the City Council at the age of 23, and eight years since she became the health and care mayor. A position that has placed her in solid headwinds in recent months after it emerged that residents in several Copenhagen nursing homes have been subjected to neglect. Welling has repeatedly stated that she only became aware of the problems after the summer break and immediately informed the politicians in her committee.
Sisse Marie Welling has long seemed a likely candidate for the next mayor of Copenhagen. Already four years ago, when Socialdemokratiet had a terrible election in Copenhagen and were overtaken by Enhedslisten, speculation began about whether Welling would be ready to reach for power in the just-concluded municipal elections. Sisse Marie Welling herself refrained from making a clear statement for a long time, which sparked criticism, including from Social Democrat Mathias Tesfaye, who started the party’s annual meeting with a jab at Welling:
»SF obviously wants the mayoral post in Copenhagen. But their candidate is not honest with the residents of Copenhagen. She does not stand up. She does not step out into the daylight,« said Tesfaye, who himself is a former SF member.
It was not until early October, a month and a half before the election, that Welling announced she was available as a potential mayor.
»I think it’s healthy with a change of scenery,« she rationalized to Information.
Considered her future in SF
»She looks young, but don’t be fooled,« said SF’s chair Pia Olsen Dyhr to DR when she, Tuesday night after the polling stations had closed, accompanied Sisse Marie Welling on their way to SF’s election party in Nørrebro.
Welling has previously stated that it was precisely Olsen Dyhr who was the reason she stayed in the party when SF collapsed in 2014 after a failed participation in government.
At that time, Welling was part of a group of ambitious young SF members known as the ’children’s gang,’ several of whom switched to Socialdemokratiet after SF’s government exit. Welling also considered her future in SF.
What made you stay?
»Pia became chair,« answered Welling when Politiken profiled her.
Copenhagen’s new mayor knows the dark side of political life. A man has been convicted of threatening her with rape, and more than 50 times a citizen has violated a police restraining order against her. Therefore, she carries an assault alarm daily.
»Of course, it’s not fun. But it’s part of the job I have. Fortunately, my children are too young to understand it,« she said at the same occasion.
As health and care mayor, Sisse Marie Welling has worked for more support for women who have postpartum injuries. She herself has two children. To Information and on her social media, she has shared that her first child was a daughter she lost halfway through the pregnancy.
The face of cultural change
While Pernille Rosenkrantz-Theil has churned out political proposals over the past year, Welling has only presented four political initiatives. Among her proposals is that the municipality should spend DKK 10 billion to buy up housing, a class size limit of a maximum of 24 students in Copenhagen public school classes, and 1,500 additional pedagogically trained staff in Copenhagen daycares.
During the election campaign, Welling has faced sharp criticism from Social Democrats both at City Hall and in Parliament, who on social media have declared the neglect case in Copenhagen nursing homes as »the biggest scandal of the election campaign.«
In contrast, the tone has been light and humorous on Welling’s own social media, where kebabs have been a frequent theme. This is a reference to her being pictured in Politiken eating a kebab wrap, which Mathias Tesfaye remarked upon in his speech at Socialdemokratiet’s annual meeting with a comment that »SF’s relationship to responsibility is like a nun’s grip on a... kebab wrap.«
When Sisse Marie Welling formally takes over the mayor’s office after the New Year, there will hardly be time to test kebabs on social media. In addition to uniting all parties except Socialdemokratiet and Frie Grønne, she is expected, according to Enhedslisten’s leader Line Barfod, to lead a cultural shift at City Hall:
»Much more openness. We will all be involved in the decision-making and preparation of decisions in a completely different way than it has been for many, many years.«
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