At the start of her political career last April, this business consultant won the highest number of votes in the Avannaata regional elections. Her socio-liberal vision of empowering Greenlandic society is based on an in-depth treatment of social affairs, with a view to promoting entrepreneurship and responsibility.
English is Heidi Møller’s third language – and ours. We reassured each other before sitting down at the café/kitchen table of the ILLU (Greenlandic language house) science and art center in Ilulissat, where she arrived by cab.
The 41-year-old politician made her first public appearance in politics during last April’s local elections, convinced that the country’s independence depends first and foremost on citizens’ involvement in public debate.
“I had often been asked to run, but I wanted to remain available for my family,” she tells polarjournal.net. Trump’s statements and the mining business with Denmark added weight to her decision. She felt she no longer had the luxury of staying in the background.
Before politics, she knew business. She worked as a traffic officer for Air Greenland, as an executive assistant at Halibut Greenland and as an HR officer in the municipality of Ilulissat. Since then, she has founded her own business development consultancy, Isikkivik Consult.
Present on social networks, she gives advice, talks about self-confidence and access to education, at the pace of the daily life of an Ilulissat resident. She also asks her Facebook, Instagram and TikTok followers about the future of Greenland’s third-largest conurbation.
The most popular
She won over a considerable proportion of voters in the Avannaata region, winning the highest number of votes for any candidate in the election. “Many young people voted Demokraatit. I think that worked in my favor, but I was happy to meet elders on election day who put their trust in me”, she tells us.
The 625 votes received by the candidate weighed heavily for her political camp. It obtained 44.9% of the vote, a rising score in line with the party’s national trend. Despite the momentum, the mayoralty eluded Demokraatit’s ten socio-liberal contenders, defeated by a coalition. “We are a small party in terms of the number of representatives in our municipality”, she explains.
Heidi Møller came close to following in the footsteps of Pelle Jeremiassen, who also declared Demokraatit at the time of the elections, with whom she is slightly at odds, criticizing the lack of global vision and short-term solutions, particularly on environmental issues.
“I think there are a lot of authoritarian leaders and many of us grew up with the idea that we shouldn’t challenge the elders. Many things have been decided without consulting public opinion”, she explained, advocating the organization of public debates. She repeatedly states that this point is a founding pillar of her vision, which she will assert as a member of the opposition, against Lars Erik Gabrielsen’s new council, as well as against conflicts of interest between the exercise of power and personal enterprises.
For her, there’s no doubt that the people of Ilulissat need to think about a desirable future. “It’s not just about money, fishing or tourism, we have to be happy living where we are. I’d like my children to feel at home,” explains this mother of two children aged 5 and 9. “I was born in Ilulissat, I grew up here and I want to live here when I’m older. There are too many older people moving to Denmark because living conditions are tougher here.”
In her view, Greenland’s independence has more to do with the willingness of the island’s inhabitants to undertake or initiate new projects, than with the immediate issue of generating the income needed to become independent and leave the Danish fold.
“They have their responsibilities to assume”
“Our culture and our loss of identity are linked to our colonial history with Denmark, which we can hardly go back on. On the other hand, we can think about a new decolonization plan, but that doesn’t mean we have to separate. We have families and a shared history. I support independence, but not now. We have to find a solution with Denmark; they have their responsibilities to assume”, she explains, pointing out that Greenlandic society is plagued by crime and a high suicide rate.
She believes that Greenland needs to tackle social issues first and foremost, so that Greenlanders, caught up in family issues, can emancipate themselves and take on national responsibilities.
“We need to help some families before they get caught up in more serious problems, like depression. We need to set up a help center, so that some of our fellow citizens can get out of their problems and start their own private company, grow and become self-sufficient,” she explains. “Too many people still rely on the municipality and the authorities, but there’s a lot of responsibility we can take on ourselves.”
On all these points, she doesn’t see how Trump could improve the island’s empowerment process.
On the other hand, she’s delighted that the next generations have made English their second language: “They’ll be able to be more international and learn more things than we can.” C.L