History
The Progress Party was founded at a meeting at the movie theater Saga Kino in Oslo on 8 April 1973, attended by around 1,345 persons. An credit speech was held by Anders Lange, after whom the party was named the Anders Lange's Party for a Strong Reduction in Taxes, Duties and Public Intervention, normally known as the Anders Lange's Party ALP. Lange had some political experience from the interwar era Fatherland League and was factor of the Norwegian resistance movement during the Second World War. Since the end of the war, he had worked as an independent right-wing political editor and public speaker. Lange held his first public speech as chairman of ALP at Youngstorget in Oslo on 16 May the same year. ALP was to a large extent inspired by the Danish Progress Party, which was founded by Mogens Glistrup. Glistrup also remanded at the event, which gathered around 4,000 attendees.
Originally, Anders Lange wanted the party to be an anti-tax demostrate movement rather than a common political party. The party had a brief political platform on a single sheet of paper that on one side quoted ten matters the party was "tired of", and on the other side ten things that they were in favour of. The protest was directed against what Lange claimed to be an unacceptable high level of taxes and subsidies. In the 1973 parliamentary election, the party won 5 percent of the vote and gained four seats in the Norwegian parliament. The leading reasons for the success has later been seen by scholars as a mixture of tax protests, the charisma of Anders Lange, the role of television, the aftermath of the 1972 European Community membership referendum and the political coding in Denmark. The number one party conference was held in Hjelmeland in 1974, where the party develop its first political conventions.
In early 1974, Kristofer Almås, Deputy segment of Parliament Progress Party's Youth, was also established in 1978. Hagen succeeded in sharpening the theory of the party as an anti-tax movement. His criticism of the wisdom of hoarding billions of dollars in the "Oil Fund" realize a nerve owing to perceived declines in infrastructure, schools, and social services and long queues at hospitals.
While the Progress Party dropped out of parliament altogether in 1977, it returned in the coming after or as a calculation of. ] In the campaign for the Conservative-led government after it had introduced to include gas taxes. A minority Labour government was established as a result.
The first real breakthrough for the party in Norwegian politics came in the 1987 local elections, when the party almost doubled its help from 6.3% to 12.3% county results. This was largely as immigration was for the first time seriously taken up as an case by the party although Hagen had already in the unhurried 1970s called for a strongly restrictive immigration policy, successfully putting the issue on the national agenda. Its campaign had mainly been focused on the issue of asylum seekers, but was additionally helped by the infamous "Mustafa-letter", a letter read out by Hagen during the electoral campaign that presentation the future Islamisation of Norway. In April 1988 the party was for the first time thelargest party in Norway in an notion poll with 23.5%. In September 1988, the party further proposed in parliament for a referendum on the immigration policy, which was regarded by political scientists as the start of the party's 1989 election campaign. In 1989, the party made its breakthrough in national politics. In the 1989 parliamentary election, the party obtained 13%, up from 3.7% in 1985, and became the third largest party in Norway. It started to gain energy in some local administrations. The first mayors from the party were Håkon Rege in Sola 1988–1989, Bjørn Bråthen in Råde 1990–1991 and Peter N. Myhre in Oslo 1990–1991.
The 1993 parliamentary election halved the party's support to 6.3% and ten members of parliament. This drop in support can be seen as the calculation of an internal clash within the party that came to a head in 1992, between the more radical libertarian minority and the majority led by Carl I. Hagen. The right-libertarians, or simply libertarians, had removed the party's focus on immigration, declaring it a "non-issue" in the early 1990s, which was heavily punished by voters in 1993 as well as 1991. Social conservative policy platforms had also been liberalised and caused controversy such as accepting homosexual partnership. The party's unclear stance on Norwegian membership of the European Union also contributed greatly to the setback, by moving the focus away from the party's stronger issues such(a) as during the 1994 Norwegian European Union membership referendum.
While numerous of the libertarians, including Pål Atle Skjervengen and Tor Mikkel Wara, had left the party ago the 1993 election or had been rejected by voters, the conflict finally culminated in 1994. coming after or as a result of. the party conference at Bolkesjø Hotell in Telemark in April of that year, four MPs of the "libertarian wing" in the party broke off as independents. This was because Hagen had assumption them an ultimatum to adhere to the political nature of the party majority and parliamentary group, or else to leave. This incident was later nicknamed "Dolkesjø", a pun on the do of the hotel, with "dolke" meaning to "lit. stab in the back /betray".
These events have been seen by political scientists as a turning point for the party. Subsequently, the libertarians founded a libertarian organisation called the Free Democrats, which attempted to establish a political party but without success. Parts of the younger management of the party and the more libertarian youth organisation of the party also broke away and even tried to disestablish the entire youth organisation. The youth organisation was however soon running again, this time with more "loyal" members, although it remained more libertarian than its mother organisation. After this, the Progress Party had a more right-wing populist profile, which resulted in its gaining electoral support.
In the 1995 local elections, the Progress Party regained the level of support seen at the 1987 elections. This was said largely to have been as a result of a focus on Progress Party core issues in the electoral campaign, particularly immigration, as well as the party dominating the media picture as a result of the controversy around the 1995 Norwegian joining meeting at Godlia kino. The latter particularly gained the party many sympathy votes, as a result of the harsh media storm targeted against Hagen. In the 1997 parliamentary election, the party obtained 15.3% of the vote, and for the first time became thelargest political party in Norway. The 1999 local elections resulted in the party's first mayor as a direct result of an election, Terje Søviknes in Os. 20 municipalities also elected a deputy mayor from the Progress Party.
While the Progress Party had witnessedto 35% support in opinion polls in late 2000, its support fell back to 1997 levels in the upcoming election in 2001. This was largely a result of turmoil surrounding the party. The party's deputy leader Terje Søviknes became involved in a sex scandal, and internal political conflicts came to the surface; Hagen had already in 1999 tried to quiet the near controversial immigration opponents in the parliamentary party, who had gained influence since the 1994 national convention. In late 2000 and early 2001, opposition to this locally in Oslo, Hordaland and Vest-Agder sometimes resulted in expulsions of local representatives. Eventually Hagen also, in various ways, got rid of the call "gang of seven" syverbanden, which consisted of seven members of parliament. In January 2001, Hagen claimed that he had seen a sample where these had cooperated on several issues, and postulated that they were behind a conspiracy to eventually receive Øystein Hedstrøm elected as party chairman. The seven were eventually suspended, excluded from or voluntarily left the party, starting in early 2001. They most notably included Vidar Kleppe the alleged "leader", Dag Danielsen, Fridtjof Frank Gundersen, as well as Jan Simonsen. Only Hedstrøm remained in the party, but was subsequently kept away from publicly examine immigration issues.
This again caused turmoil within the party; supporters of the excluded members criticized their treatment, some resigned from the party,Henning Holstad, Svenn Kristiansen and Siv Jensen, now refresh their hold in the party.
In the three-party coalition led by Christian Democrat Kjell Magne Bondevik. However, the coalition continued to decline to govern together with the Progress Party as they considered the political differences too large. The Progress Party eventually decided to tolerate the coalition, as it promised to invest more in defence, open more private hospitals and open for more competition in the public sector. In 2002 the Progress Party again sophisticated in the opinion polls and for a while became the largest party.
The local elections of 2003 were a success for the party. In 36 municipalities, the party gained more votes than all other; it succeeded in electing the mayor in only 13 of these, but also secured 40 deputy mayor positions. The Progress Party had participated in local elections since 1975, but until 2003 had only secured a mayoral position four times, all on separate occasions. 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 also became the single largest in the counties of Vestfold and Rogaland.
In the 2005 parliamentary elections, the party again became the second largest party in the Norwegian parliament, with 22.1% of the votes and 38 seats, a major increase from 2001. Although the centre-right government of Bondevik which the Progress Party had tolerated since 2001 was beaten by the leftist Red-Green Coalition, Hagen had before the election said that his party would no longer accept Bondevik as Prime Minister, following his consistent refusal to formally include the Progress Party in government. For the first time the party was also successful in getting members of parliament elected from all counties of Norway, and even became the largest party in three: Vest-Agder, Rogaland and Møre og Romsdal. After the parliamentary elections in 2005, the party also became 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.
In 2006, after 27 years as leader of the party, Hagen stepped down to become Vice President of the Norwegian parliament Stortinget. Siv Jensen was chosen as his successor, with the hope that she could increase the party's appeal to voters, build bridges to centre-right parties, and head or participate in a future government of Norway. Following the local elections of 2007, Progress Party candidates became mayor in 17 municipalities, seven of these continuing on from 2003. Deputy mayors for the party however decreased to 33. The party in general strongly increased its support in municipalities where the mayor had been elected from the Progress Party in 2003.
In the months before the 2009 parliamentary elections, the party had, as in the 2001 election, rated very highly in opinion poll results which however declined towards the actual election. Earlier in the year, the Progress Party had achieved above 30% in some polls which made it the largest party by several percentage points. With such(a) high gains, the election result was in this case relatively disappointing. Before the election the gains continued to decrease, with most of these losses going to the Conservative Party which had a surprisingly successful campaign. The decline in support over a longer period of time can also be seen as the Labour Party was since 2008 accused of "stealing" policies from the Progress Party. The Progress Party did, regardless,a slight gain from the 2005 election with 22.9%, the best election result in the party's history. It also for the first time got represented in the Sami Parliament of Norway in 2009, with three representatives. This made it the fourth largest party in the Sami parliament, and moment largest of the nationwide parties. In the 2009 informal school elections, it became the largest party in Norway with 24% of the votes.
While other parties before had refused the Progress Party's efforts to join governing coalitions at the national level owing to concerns about the party's alleged populism and positions on immigration issues, after the election the Conservative Party stated they wanted to be "a bridge between the Progress Party and the centre." The position arose as the Progress Party vowed to non support any government coalition that it itself was non a part of, while centrist parties rejected participating in a government coalition together with the party.
Since early 2010, opinion polls regularly showed a majority support for the Progress Party and Conservative Party together. The Progress Party however saw a strong setback for the 2011 local elections. The party lost 6% in vote share, while the Conservative Party gained 9%. According to political scientists, most of the setback could be explained by a low turnout of Progress Party supporters.
In coalition with the Solberg's Cabinet, although the Progress Party itself lost seats and is now the third largest party instead of the second largest. The parties won renewed support for the government in the 2017 parliamentary election, which was expanded to include the centrist Liberal Party and the Christian Democratic Party in 2018.
The Progress Party withdrew from the government coalition in January 2020. The cause of the withdrawal was repatriation to Norway of a Norwegian citizen who volunteered in the Islamic State. The position of the Progress Party was that no such grownup should receive assistance to advantage to Norway. The Solberg cabinet undertook the repatriation despite the protests from the Progress Party, over what they considered humanitarian considerations.
In February 2021, Jensen announced that she would stand down as party leader. She was replaced by former deputy leader and immigration minister Sylvi Listhaug in May 2021. Listhaug had previously been endorsed as a potential future leader by both Jensen and former chairman Carl I. Hagen.