Progress Party (Norway)

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The Progress Party (Bokmål: Fremskrittspartiet, Nynorsk: Framstegspartiet, Norwegian abbreviation: FrP) is the second largest political party in Norway as of the 2005 parliamentary elections. The FrP defines itself as a liberal conservative party.^{[citation needed]} The Party was founded on principle of reducing what it considered an excessive control the Norwegian society by the state. Progress Party believes that in many areas people themselves or private organizations can handle better than the state.

The Party advocates free market economics and deregulation of the economy, stricter limits on immigration, especially from immigrants who break the law, closer cooperation with NATO, United States and also Israel in foreign policy, a more controlled state aid to developing countries, social and cultural conservatism, the decentralization of government.

Its current chairman is Siv Jensen.

History

Foundation

The Progress Party was founded on April 8, 1973 with an address held by Anders Lange. Anders Lange intended the party to be more like a 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 regulations, against government interventionism, and against the social democrat "nanny state". ^[1]

The party started off with an unusually long name, "Anders Lange's Party for strong reductions of taxes, charges and government intervention", usually referred to as "Anders Lange' Party", or "ALP". It adopted its current name in 1977.

The first election, in 1973, gave Anders Lange 5%, and four seats in the Norwegian parliament.

Role of Carl I. Hagen

Following Anders Lange's death in 1974, two persons lead the party during a brief period of time. The party performed poorly in 1977 election, which led to Carl I. Hagen taking control of the party in 1978:

• Anders Lange [1973 – 1974]
• Eivind Eckbo [1974 – 1975] (interim)
• Arve Lønnum [1975 – 1978]

Carl I. Hagen remained the chairman of Frp until 2006, when he yielded control of the party to Siv Jensen, himself becoming the Vice President of the Stortinget, the Norwegian Parliarment. Under leadership of Carl I Hagen the Progress Party became the second largest political party in Norway.

Popular support through history

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^[2].

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 the libertarian organization Fridemokratene which tried to organize like a political party, but without success.

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

In the local election in 1999, Progress-Party's Terje Søviknes was elected mayor of Os. 20 municipalities got a deputy mayor from the Progress Party.

In the Norwegian parliamentary election, 2001, Frp lost the advance it had on polls, but maintained its position from the 1997 election, and 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 Chritian Democrat Kjell Magne Bondevik. However, the coalition declined to govern together with the Progress party, considering the political differences being too large.

In 2002, the Progress party advanced again in polls, and for a short while it even became the largest party, with a strong margin in December 2002. In the polls in November 2006 illustrating that Frp have 32,9% of the vote and the largest party in Norway today.

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^[3].

Expulsion of The Democrats

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 populist local representatives in Oslo and some parliamentarians resigned from the party. Some "soloists", as they were called, were suspended, including Vidar Kleppe, who was suspended for two years, or expelled, as was Jan Simonsen. The "populists" formed a party called The Democrats, with Vidar Kleppe as chairman and Jan Simonsen as vice-chairman.

Recent Elections

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).

Party leadership

• Anders Lange [1973 – 1974]
• Eivind Eckbo [1974 – 1975] (interim)
• Arve Lønnum [1975 – 1978]
• Carl I. Hagen [1978 – 2006] (2006 retirement announced in 2003)
• Siv Jensen [2006 – ]

Political platform

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The Progress Party defines itself as a "liberalistic party^[4], built on Norwegian and Western traditions and cultural heritages, with a basis in a Christian and humanist understanding of life. Its main declared goal is a strong reduction in taxes and government intervention.

Specific Issues

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%.^{[citation needed]}

Vote legislation

The party promotes decentralisation and binding referendums. In Norway, the result of a referendum is not binding, even if in practice politicians have always followed their indications. Furthermore, it favors abolishing the current laws that make a vote cast in a large Norwegian county carry more weight than one cast in densely populated urban areas such as Oslo. The party wants to abolish the Sami Parliament of Norway and other financial support for the revitalization of the language and culture of the indegenous Sami people.

Labour economics

The party proposes a deregulation of the job market, so that laws no longer restrict the contract between an employer and employee beyond safety and health requirements.

Welfare State

The Progress Party wants to reorganize the way welfare is distributed to allow for competition and private production of such services, without reducing the welfare state itself. It has long favoured increased benefits for the elderly, which has become one of their main electoral groups^{[citation needed]}.

Role of the State

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The role of the state is considered to be limited to a few areas:

Military

With a close cooperation with NATO;

Foreign policy

Based on the protection of Norwegian interests, with closer cooperation with the United States and closer relationship with Israel, and a more controlled state-financed help to third-world countries.

Judiciary

The party proposes a simplification and update of laws in form and content, and reduction of the use of wiretapping, that should be limited to serious crimes and threats to the state's security.

Education

The main point of difference with other parties is the support for state funding of private schools and universities, in order to provide equal conditions. An increase in discipline and decrease in social responsibility in Norwegian schools are also often defended.

Social responsibility

The party declares its principle to be "helping people help themselves". It is in favour of using money to help the families of the ill, instead of financing public institutions for education of the young and care for the sick or elderly.

Transport

The Progress Party has often been considered "the motorist's party". They are for increased spending in road building and maintenance, and are against the commonplace system of financing public roads with tolls due to the fact that, in Norway, very little of the money collected from toll stations is actually used for road construction and maintenance^{[citation needed]}. Some of its members are not in favour of spending more money, rather spending less money on railways in Norway, even in and around Oslo.

Bank of Norway

An increased degree of independence for the Bank of Norway is advocated.

Outsourcing

The party supports outsourcing of some public services.

Criticism

The neutrality of this section is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page. This section has been tagged since December 2007.

Critics claim that the differences between the Progress party and other parties can be stark in many areas, and that of all Norwegian parties the Progress party is likely the one that inspires the most opinionated comments, in one way or another. Some scholars classified the Party in the 1990s as an "extreme right", or a "radical right-wing extremist" political movement.^{[5][6][7][8][9][10][11][not in citation given]} Since then the terms used by a variety of scholars to describe the Progress Party (and similar parties and movements in Europe) have ranged from conservative-libertarian, to radical right wing populist^{[citation needed]}, to xenophobic ethno-nationalist^{[citation needed]}. The Progress Party rejects all these labels.

Populism

Frp are sometimes connected to right-wing populism in Europe^[12] because they are skeptical towards immigration and have the same perspective on means to combat crime.

Immigration

The immigration policy of the Progress party has for a long time been a matter of heated discussion. The policy of the party is to favour immigrants who quickly learn Norwegian and get jobs, while expelling the criminal foreigners. 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. [1]

Critics accuse the party of xenophobia, whereas supporters argue that the policy is to address a real problem as non-European immigrants are overrepresented in some of the crime statistics.^[13]

The 2005 Brochure on Immigration

During the 2005 electoral campaign, the Progress Party printed a brochure focusing on criminal immigrants. The text on the brochure reads "The perpetrator is of foreign origin ...!" Heavy criticism followed by the other Norwegian parties, centered on the allegation that such an advertisement criminalized immigrants as a group. Prime-minister Kjell Magne Bondevik said that "the Progress Party plays on the fear of foreigners."

The Progress Party protested that the critics were mutilating their message. They pointed out that the next page of the brochure read: "«Those most eager to get rid of criminal immigrants are us honest immigrants!» (Pakistani-born immigrant in Norway)". Frp chairman Hagen argued "Bondevik is wrong here. The brochure says that many immigrants are law-abiding citizens that do a fantastic job for Norway. But unfortunately there are too many who are not. Statistics clearly show that criminality is growing among immigrants."^[14] The Progress Party maintains that it has nothing against law-abiding immigrants who are in Norway on legal premises, and they reject discrimination based on colour, race, cultural, ethnic or religious affiliation. ^[15]

War on Terror

Although the War on Terror is not an issue the Progress Party promotes a lot, they have a clear position in support of the United States. The only Norwegian party to support the U.S led invasion of Iraq in 2003 was the Progress Party .Former party chairman Carl I Hagen sometimes claims that there is a link between Islamist fundamentalism and terror. This position receives particularly broad support among conservative Christian communities.^{[citation needed]}

Carl I Hagen once said in an interview that "Not all Muslims are terrorists, but most terrorists are Muslim". Upon question of why he did not consider terrorism in the Basque country and Northern Ireland, he replied that these were "national conflicts, and [had] nothing to do with [international terrorism]".^[16]

Environmental policies

The Progress Party is the only Norwegian party to debate the threat of global warming, and to oppose Norwegian participation in the Kyoto protocol. Party chairman Siv Jensen has claimed the reason is that major contributors to CO₂ release like the USA and China are excluded from the treaty. However, when the United States refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol, the party's environmental spokesman Øyvind Korsberg applauded the decision and said the party was "very glad" the United States refused to sign it because it was based on a very dubious scientific basis [2]. They suggest that there are several reasons for global warming and not all of them are man made. It also favours reduction of the gasoline price, which is currently heavily taxed and is some times as high as 12 krones per liter (about 7,5$/gallon). [3]

Isolation

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.^[17]

However, in the wake of the 2005 elections that saw an increase in support for the FrP, the Conservatives stated they wanted to be "a bridge between FrP and the centre".^[18]

See also

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

References

1. ^ Anders Lange's speech at Saga Kino, 8 April, 1973
2. ^ List of mayors of Oslo, from the website of the City of Oslo
3. ^ The Norwegian Progress Party: Building Bridges across Old Cleavages by Tor Bjørklund and Jo Saglie, Norwegian Institute for Social Reseach, PDF file.
4. ^ In Norwegian political parlance, it is common to separate between centrist "liberals" (liberalere) and more right-wing "liberalists" (liberalister). The Progress Party identifies itself in the preamble of its platform as a "liberalistic" party (i.e. a party of "liberalists").
5. ^ Piero Ignazi, “The Extreme Right in Europe” pp. 47-64 in Peter H. Merkl and Leonard Weinberg, The Revival of Right-Wing Extremism in the Nineties (London: Frank Cass, 1997).
6. ^ Matland, Richard E. (August 1993). "Institutional Variables Affecting Female Representation in National Legislatures: The Case of Norway". The Journal of Politics 55: 737-755. doi:10.2307/2131998. Retrieved on 2006-10-15. 
7. ^ Bjorklund, Tor; Andersen, Jorgen Goul (March, 1999). "Anti-Immigration Parites in Denmark and Norway: The Progress Parties and the Danish People's Party". Arbejdspapirer fra Institut for Okonomi, Politik og Forvaltning, Aalborg Universitet. Retrieved on 2006-10-15.
8. ^ Andersen, C.J. (November 1996). "Economics, Politics, and Foreigners: Populist Party Support in Denmark and Norway". Electoral Studies 15 (4): 497-511. doi:10.1016/S0261-3794(96)00030-3. Retrieved on 2006-10-15. 
9. ^ (July 1993) "The New Politics of Resentment: Radical Right-Wing Populist Parties in Western Europe". Comparative Politics 25 (4): 413-427. doi:10.2307/422034. Retrieved on 2006-10-15. 
10. ^ Hans-George, Betz (1994). Radical Right-Wing Populism in Western Europe. New York, New York: St. Martin's Press. 
11. ^ (1999). "Antisemitism and Racism: Norway". Stephen Roth Institute, Tel Aviv University. Retrieved on 2006-10-15.
12. ^ Descriptive article on the Progress Party by Aslak Bonde, political journalist of Aftenposten.
13. ^ Skarðhamar, Torbjørn (2006), Kriminalitet gjennom ungdomstiden blant nordmenn og ikke-vestlige innvandrere, The Norwegian Central Bureau of Statistics, <http://www.ssb.no/emner/03/05/notat_200633/notat_200633.pdf>
14. ^ "Progress Party brochure sparks racism charges", Aftenposten, 2005-08-16. 
15. ^ Progress Party's Immigration Platform
16. ^ Hagen: all terrorists are muslim, from Aftenposten, August 26, 2005.
17. ^ Struggling Conservatives re-elect same leadership
18. ^ Struggling Conservatives re-elect same leadership

External links

• (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 Parliamentary political parties in Norway
Parties in government:	Labour (61 members of parliament) - Socialist Left (15) - Centre (11)
Parties in opposition:	Progress (38) - Conservative (23) - Christian Democratic (11) - Liberal (10)
Portal:Politics - List of political parties - Politics of Norway

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