Progress Party (Norway)

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Progress Party Fremskrittspartiet
Leader	Siv Jensen
Founded	1973
Headquarters	Oslo
Youth wing	Fremskrittspartiets Ungdom
Membership	27,000
Ideology	Classical liberalism,[1] Social conservatism,[2] Right-wing populism[3]
Political position	Right-wing
International affiliation	None
European affiliation	None
Official colours	Blue, red (unofficial)
Website
www.frp.no
Politics of Norway Political parties Elections

The Progress Party (Bokmål: Fremskrittspartiet, Nynorsk: Framstegspartiet, FrP), founded as "Anders Lange's Party for a Strong Reduction in Taxes, Duties and Public Intervention", is a Norwegian right-wing political party. It became the second largest political party in Norway for its first time in the 1997 parliamentary election, and has been so ever since, only abrupted by the 2001 parliamentary elections. Despite of this, the party has yet to be part of a Norwegian government, mainly as a result of the concurrent ostracism by most of the other mainstream political parties.

Currently the party has over 27 000 members^[4], the most it has ever had, and is practically the only large political party in Norway which has had a strong steady increase of members for the last years (as opposed to a steady decrease in membership of other parties).^[5] The current leader of the Progress Party is Siv Jensen, who was the party's unsuccessful candidate for Prime Minister of Norway in the 2009 parliamentary election.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Foundation 1.2 Role of Carl I. Hagen 1.3 Election history 1.4 Isolation 2 Political platform 2.1 Specific Issues 2.1.1 Society and Economy 2.1.2 Immigration 3 Party leadership 4 Parliamentary election results 5 See also 6 References 7 External links

[edit] History

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[edit] Foundation

The Progress Party was founded on April 8, 1973 with an address held by Anders Lange, as Anders Lange's Party for a Strong Reduction in Taxes, Duties and Public Intervention^[1], usually referred to simply as Anders Lange's Party, or abbreviated "ALP". Anders Lange intended the party to be more like an anti-tax protest movement than a regular political party. The protest was directed against what he claimed to be an unacceptably high level of taxes, subsidies, and foreign aid.^[6] The party adopted its current name on January 29, 1977, inspired by the success of the new Danish Progress Party.^[7]

The populist themes helped him win 5% of the vote and gain four seats in the Norwegian parliament Stortinget in the 1973 election. But already before his death his intemperate and unpredictable behavior, and his frequent violent outbursts was beginning to damage the party.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Role of Carl I. Hagen

Following Anders Lange's death in 1974, two persons led the party during a brief period of time. In the same year, Carl I. Hagen, then an MP for ALP, along with some others, broke away and formed the short-lived Reform Party.^[8] The background for this was a critisism of ALP's "undemocratic organization" and lack of a real party program. The new party was however defunct by the next year. Anders Lange's Party performed poorly in the 1977 election, being left without parliamentary representation, which led to Carl I. Hagen taking control of the party in 1978.

Carl I. Hagen, succeeded in sharpening the image of the party as an anti-tax movement. His criticism of the wisdom of hoarding billions of dollars worth in the “State Fund” hit a nerve due to perceived declines in infrastructure, schools, and social services and long queues at hospitals. In 2006, after 27 years as leader of the party, he stepped down to become Vice President of the Norwegian parliament Stortinget. The then 36 year old Siv Jensen was elected as his successor with the hope that she could increase the party's appeal to voters, build bridges to liberal-conservative parties, and head or participate in a future government of Norway.

[edit] Election history

For the first 26 years of its history, the party enjoyed only modest success in the polls. In 1977 it dropped out of parliament all together.

In 1981 they came back with four MP's, and they won two in the next election in 1985. Even though the party only got two MP's for the 1985 election, it was however left with some controlling power as they came in between, or rather beyond, the two main power blocks. The Progress Party used this in May 1986, to effectively throw the sitting Conservative Party-led government after it had requested to increase gas-taxes. A minority Labour Party government was reinserted as a result.^[8]

The party's first real breakthrough in Norwegian politics came in the 1987 local elections when the party nearly doubled its support, from 6.3 to 12.3% (county elections).^[8]

In 1989, the party followed and made its breakthrough in national politics. In the parliamentary election in 1989, the party obtained 13%, and became the third largest party in Norway. It started to gain power in some local administrations. In 1990, Peter N. Myhre, of FrP, became the mayor of Oslo.^[9]

The 1993 election halved the party's support to 6.3% and 10 representatives. In 1994, four representatives of the "libertarian wing" broke out, formed an independent group in parliament, and founded an libertarian organization called the Free Democrats which tried to organize like a political party, but without success. After this, the Progress Party has had a clear right-wing populist profile, which resulted in a strong gain in support.^[7]

In the 1997 election, FrP obtained 15.3%, and was again the third largest party.

The 1999 local elections resulted in the first mayor being elected from the party, Terje Søviknes in Os. 20 municipalities got a deputy mayor from the Progress Party.

Before the 2001 election, Frp enjoyed a high level of popular support in 1999–2000, but its support fell back to 1997 levels in the actual election, following both internal turmoil (the then second vice-chairman of the party, Terje Søviknes, was involved in a sex scandal) and internal disagreements. This time, several local representatives in Oslo and some parliamentarians "resigned" from the party. Some "populists", as they were called, were suspended^[7], including Vidar Kleppe, who was suspended for two years, or expelled, as was Jan Simonsen. The "populists" formed a more national conservative anti-immigration party called the Democrats, with Vidar Kleppe as chairman and Jan Simonsen as vice-chairman.

In the 2001 parliamentary election FrP lost the gains it had made according to opinion polling but maintained its position from the 1997 election, it got 14.6% and 26 members in the parliament. The election result allowed them to unseat the Labour Party government of Jens Stoltenberg and replace it with a three-party coalition led by Christian Democrat Kjell Magne Bondevik. However, the coalition declined to govern together with the Progress Party as they considered the political differences too large.

In 2002 the Progress Party again advanced in the opinion polls and for a short while became the largest party, and with a strong margin in December 2002.

The local elections in 2003 were a success for FrP. In 30 municipalities, the party gained more votes than any other, but it succeeded to elect the mayor only in 13 of these. The Progress Party has participated in local elections since 1975, but until 2003 the party has only gained the mayor position twice. The Progress Party vote in Os—the only municipality that elected a Progress Party mayor in 1999—increased from 36.6% in 1999 to 45.7% in 2003. The party gained ground across the country, but more so in municipalities where the party had the mayor or the deputy mayor.

In the 2005 parliamentary elections, it was the second largest party in Storting, with 22.1% of the votes and 38 seats (up from third-largest with 14.6% and 26 seats in the 2001 elections). For the first time the party was also represented in all the counties of Norway, and even became the largest party in three; Vest-Agder, Rogaland and Møre og Romsdal.^[7] After the parliamentary elections in 2005, the party was the largest party in many opinion polls. The Progress Party led November 2006 opinion polls with a support of 32.9% of respondents, and it continued to poll above 25 percent during the following years.^{[10][11][12][13]}

In the months before the 2009 parliamentary elections, the party had, as in the 2001 election, received very high poll results which it lost towards the actual election. With for instance an August 2008 poll average of 30.8%, and up to 32% in certain individual polls which made it the largest party by several percentage, the election result was in this case relatively disappointing. In the electoral campaign which last for four weeks before the election, the party also dropped 3.5% in the poll average. Most of these last losses went to the Conservative Party who had a surprisingly successful campaign. The Progress Party did, anyways, receive a slight gain from the 2005 election, up 0.9% from 22.1 to 22.9%, which resulted in the best election result in the party's history.

[edit] Isolation

Ever since its foundation, other parties have consistently refused the Progress Party's efforts to formally join any governing coalition at the state level, despite the Progress Party having broad popular support. Recently though, after the 2005 elections which saw a further increase in support for the Progress Party, the Conservatives stated they wanted to be "a bridge between FrP and the centre". This is because the two other non-socialist parliamentary parties, the Liberal Party and Christian Democratic Party reject to participate in a government coaliton of which the Progress Party is a member, and the Progress Party also does not want to support a coalition of which they aren't a part of.^[14]

[edit] Political platform

The Progress Party defines itself as a libertarian party. It has been claimed though, that the liberalism in the party has decreased since the 1990s, possibly as a result of when in 1994 members of the "libertarian wing" of the party broke out.^[2] In Norwegian political parlance, it is common to separate between centrist "liberals" (liberalere) and more right-wing "libertarians" (liberalister). The Progress Party identifies itself in the preamble of its platform as a libertarian party, built on Norwegian and Nordic traditions and cultural heritages, with a basis in a Protestant and humanist understanding of life. Its main declared goal is a strong reduction in taxes and government intervention.

The core issues for the party revolves around immigration, crime, foreign aid, the elderly and social security in regards to health and care for the elderly. The party is regarded as having policies on the right in most of these cases, both fiscally and socially, though in some cases, like care for the elderly, the policy is regarded as being on the left.^[2]

[edit] Specific Issues

[edit] Society and Economy

The Progress Party places highly in its program the right of the individual to decide about its own life and economy, and claims the individual is, together with the family and the right to own private property, a fundamental of society. The party does not want the state to solve problems that they claim might be handled better by individuals, private companies or organizations. It also proposes to increase taxation on consumption to compensate for reduced taxation on work, although it has given very high priority to reduction of gas taxes and supported the reduction of food taxes from 24% to 12%. It opposes a recently posed suggestion to raise the taxes by one percent, to 13%.

[edit] Immigration

The policy of the party is to favour immigrants who quickly learn Norwegian and get jobs, while expelling the criminal foreigners. Generally the party want a stricter immigration policy, so that only people who are in real need for protection according to the UN Refugee Convention are to be allowed to stay in Norway.^[15] In a speech during opening of the election campaign for the 2007 election, the party chairman Siv Jensen claimed that the present immigration policy is a failure because it lets criminals stay in Norway, while throwing out people who work hard and follow the law.

In the so-called "100-day program", released before the 2009 election, the party set the official goal of reducing the flow of new asylum seekers with about 90%, from 1.000 to 100 a month, the standards currently used in Denmark and Finland.^[16] Even stricter standards, such as a bar of 100 asylum seekers a year, have however been suggested as recently as 2008. Immigration political spokesman Per-Willy Amundsen then further said the party want to "avoid illiterates and other poorly resourced groups who we see are not able to adopt in Norway", with some specific countries including Somalia, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Amundsen and party leader Jensen also thought it was wrong that asylum seekers get to stay in Norway on humanitarian grounds or because of health issues.^[17]

A poll conducted by Utrop in August 2009 showed that 10% (14% if the respondants answering "Don't know" are removed) of immigrants in Norway would vote for the Progress Party, only beaten by the Labour Party, when asked.^[18] More specificallly, this constituted 9% of both African and Eastern European immigrants, 22% of Western European immigrants and 3% of Asian immigrants.^[19] By comparison, 22.9% of the electorate voted for the Progress Party in the 2009 parlamentary elections. Numerous people with minority background are also active in the party^[20], most notably deputy parliamentary representative Iranian-Norwegian Mazyar Keshvari.

[edit] Party leadership

• Anders Lange (1973–1974)
• Eivind Eckbo (1974–1975) (interim)
• Arve Lønnum (1975–1978)
• Carl I. Hagen (1978–2006)
• Siv Jensen (2006–)

[edit] Parliamentary election results

Year	% of votes	Members of the Storting
1973	5.0	4
1977	1.9	–
1981	4.5	4
1985	3.7	2
1989	13.0	22
1993	6.3	10
1997	15.3	25
2001	14.6	26
2005	22.1	38
2009	22.9	41

[edit] See also

• Politics of Norway
• Fremskrittspartiets Ungdom ("Youth of the Progress Party")

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Progress Party

• (Norwegian) Fremskrittspartiet (Progress Party) - official site
• Fremskrittspartiet (Progress Party) - official site in English
• (Norwegian) Official programme, in Norwegian
• The Principles of Fremskrittspartiet (Progress Party), the political manifesto of PP.
• History of Fremskrittspartiet (Progress Party) 1973-2006
• (Norwegian) Fremskrittspartiets ungdom (Youth party) - official site
• Election results for Frp in the 2007 local elections

v • d • e Political parties in Norway Parties in Government1 Labour (64 seats in parliament) - Socialist Left (11) - Centre (11) Parties in Opposition1 Progress (41) - Conservative (30) - Christian Democratic (10) - Liberal (2) Minor parties2 Red (1.3%) · Pensioners (0.4%) · Green (0.3%) · Coastal (0.2%) · Christian Unity (0.2%) · Democrats (0.1%) 1 by seats in the Storting.  2 by % of vote in most recent general election. Portal:Politics - List of political parties - Politics of Norway