The party was founded at the national convention of the
Norsk Landmandsforbund during 17–19 June 1920, when it was decided by the association to run for the
1921 Norwegian parliamentary election. In 1922, the association was renamed to the
Norwegian Agrarian Association and the political activity of the group was separated as the Farmers' Party (
Bondepartiet). During the eight decades since the Centre Party was created as a political faction of a Norwegian
agrarian organisation, the party has changed a great deal. Only a few years after its creation, the party broke with its mother organisation and started developing a policy based on
decentralisation. The 1930s have in the post-war era been seen as a controversial time in the party's history. This is partly because
Vidkun Quisling, who later became the leader of
Nasjonal Samling, was Minister of Defence in the Farmers Party
Kolstad and
Hundseid cabinets from 1931 to 1933. However, Quisling was not a member of the Farmers Party. While there were fascist sympathies among parts of the Farmers Party's electorate, the Farmers Party itself never supported
fascism and it was the Farmers' Party that enabled the first stable Labour cabinet in Norway. In 1935, they reached a compromise with the
Labour Party which led to the
Nygaardsvold Cabinet. In addition, the Farmers' Party was represented in the war-time cabinet by
Anders Fjelstad, who served as a consultative councillor of state. Political scientist
Trond Nordby argues that the Farmers' Party has been given an undeservably bad reputation from this time and that the party was not really "as dark brown as some claim". In 1959, the party briefly changed its name to the Norwegian Democratic Party – Democrats (
Norsk Folkestyreparti – Demokratene), but it soon had to change the name again due to election technicalities. In June 1959, the name was changed to the current Centre Party. This happened out of the need to attract an additional electorate with the continuing decline of the agrarian share of the population. From 1927 to 1999, the party published the newspaper
Fylket. In local elections, the party has enjoyed strong support in several small municipalities, where the party has a strong influence. After the
2007 Norwegian local elections, 83 of the
mayors in Norway represented the Centre Party. Only the Labour Party had more mayors and the Centre Party had more mayors than any other, relative to party size. The Centre Party had been a part of both
centrist and
centre-right coalition governments from 1963 to 2000 and in six governments, one of which were led by a
Prime Minister from the party. Since the
2005 Norwegian parliamentary election, the party ran for government together with the Labour Party and the
Socialist Left Party as the
red–green coalition, with the Centre Party constituting the green part of the alliance. The coalition was successful in winning the majority of the seats in the
Storting and negotiations followed with the aim of forming a coalition cabinet led by the Labour Party's leader
Jens Stoltenberg. These negotiations succeeded and the Centre Party entered the
Second Stoltenberg Cabinet on 17 October 2005 with four ministers. The Red–Greens were re-elected to government in the
2009 Norwegian parliamentary election. It has been argued that the party's ideology moved more towards
social democracy at the end of the 1980s. The party is known for its support of high toll tariffs on foreign cheese and meat called "toll protection" as well as their proposal to shoot all wolves in Norway. However, this has lately been rejected as the party's policy by
Sandra Borch, the predator policies spokesperson of the Centre Party, who in a 2020 interview given on the debate program to
Dagsnytt 18 on
NRK1 stated that "[t]he Centre Party has never proposed to exterminate the wolf. We want substainable management of predators", adding that "[w]hat the Centre Party has been a part of, together with the Liberal Party in a broad agreement in the Storting, is that we will have 4-6 breeding wolf packs in Norway." The party was also in charge of implementing the
Berne Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats in 1986. The Centre Party's
Rakel Surlien was Minister of the Environment when Norway ratified the Berne Convention, so that protection of wolves became Norwegian law. The Berne Convention was otherwise adopted by a unanimous
Storting, which also included all MPs from the Centre Party. In late 2012, the Centre Party caused controversy in Norway when it emerged that the party had demanded higher import tariffs on meat and hard cheeses to protect Norwegian farmers from foreign competition. This included increased duties of 429% on lamb, 344% on beef and 277% on all but 14 exempted hard cheeses. Since the leadership of
Trygve Slagsvold Vedum during years in opposition, the party has been described as
populist by several sources. Vedum's first parliamentary election as leader, in
2017, saw the party nearly double its vote and seat total. At the
2021 election, the party won a further nine seats, bringing their total to 28. It was the party's best result since
1993 and the second-best result in party history. The Centre Party re-entered government, supporting
Labour Party Prime Minister
Jonas Gahr Støre. Vedum became
finance minister in the new government. The Centre Party withdrew from the Labour government in January 2025. Labour governed as a minority government until the
2025 election. Following the Centre Party's exit from government, the Labour Party saw a rebound in the polls after former Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg replaced Vedum as Finance Minister. In the 2025 election, the Centre Party's support collapsed, securing just nine seats (a decrease of 19) with 5.6% of the vote, the worst result in the party’s history. Despite the collapse of the Centre Party, Labour, Centre, and other left-of-centre parties were able to secure a majority of seats in the Storting. == List of party leaders ==