Anders Lange's Party , founder of the party 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 people. Lange had some political experience from the interwar era
Fatherland League and was part of the
Norwegian resistance movement during the
Second World War. which was founded by
Mogens Glistrup. Glistrup also spoke at the event, which gathered around 4,000 attendees. Originally, Anders Lange wanted the party to be an anti-tax protest movement rather than a common political party. The party had a brief political platform on a single sheet of paper that on one side listed ten things 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% of the vote and gained four seats in the
Norwegian parliament. The main 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 development in Denmark. The first party conference was held in
Hjelmeland Municipality in 1974, where the party established its first political conventions.
Progress Party and Carl I. Hagen In early 1974, Kristofer Almås, Deputy Member of Parliament
Carl I. Hagen, along with some others, broke away and formed the short-lived
Reform Party. The background for this was a criticism of ALPs "undemocratic organisation" and lack of a real party program. However, in the same year, Anders Lange died; consequently Hagen stepped in as a regular Member of Parliament in Lange's place. As a result, the Reform Party merged back into ALP already the following year. The party adopted its current name, the
Progress Party, on 29 January 1977, inspired by the great success of the Danish Progress Party. The Progress Party performed poorly in the
1977 parliamentary election, and was left without parliamentary representation. In the 1978 party convention, Carl I. Hagen was elected as party chairman. Hagen soon started to expand the political program of the party, and built a conventional party organisation, a step which Lange and some of his followers had opposed.
1980s: establishing the party , party leader for nearly three decades from 1978 to 2006 While the Progress Party dropped out of parliament altogether in 1977, it returned in the following
1981 parliamentary election with four representatives. In this election, the
political right in general had a great upturn, which garnered the Progress Party increased support. The ideology of the party was sharpened in the 1980s, and the party officially declared that it was a
libertarian party at its national convention in
Sandefjord in 1983. Until then, the party had not had a clearly defined ideology. In the campaign for the
1985 parliamentary election, the party attacked many aspects of the Norwegian welfare state, and campaigned for privatization of medical care, education and government-owned enterprises as well as steep cuts in
income tax. In the election, the party lost two of its four members of parliament, but was left with some power as they became the
kingmaker. In May 1986, the party used this position to effectively throw out the governing
Conservative-led government after it had proposed to increase gas taxes. A
minority Labour government was established as a result. 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 power in some local administrations. The first mayors from the party were
Håkon Rege in
Sola Municipality (1988–1989), Bjørn Bråthen in
Råde (1990–1991) and
Peter N. Myhre in Oslo (1990–1991).
1990s: libertarian-wing schism and consolidation 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 result of an internal conflict 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 as during the
1994 Norwegian European Union membership referendum. While many of the libertarians, including
Pål Atle Skjervengen and
Tor Mikkel Wara, had left the party before the 1993 election 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. 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 the second largest 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 Municipality. Twenty municipalities also elected a deputy mayor from the Progress Party.
2000–2001: turmoil and expulsion of populists While the Progress Party had witnessed close to 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 most controversial immigration opponents in the parliamentary party, who had gained influence since the 1994 national convention. In January 2001, Hagen claimed that he had seen a pattern where these had cooperated on several issues, and postulated that they were behind a conspiracy to eventually get
Øystein Hedstrøm elected as party chairman. The seven were eventually suspended, excluded from or voluntarily left the party, starting in early 2001. This again caused turmoil within the party; supporters of the excluded members criticized their treatment, some resigned from the party, and some of the party's local chapters were closed. Some of the outcasts ran for office in the 2001 election in
several new county lists, and later some formed a new party called the
Democrats, with Kleppe as chairman and Simonsen as deputy chairman. Though the "gang of seven" took controversial positions on immigration, the actions taken against them were also based on internal issues; it remains unclear to what degree the settlement was based primarily on political disagreements or tactical considerations. Hagen's main goal with the "purge" was an attempt to make it possible for non-socialist parties to cooperate in an eventual government together with the Progress Party. The more moderate libertarian minority in Oslo, including
Henning Holstad,
Svenn Kristiansen and Siv Jensen, now improved their hold in the party.
2001–2005: Bondevik II years In the
2001 parliamentary election, the party 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 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 advanced 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 any 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.
2006–2021: Siv Jensen 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 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, achieve 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 second 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 not support any government coalition that it itself was not 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 2018 In coalition with the
Conservative Party, the party won the
2013 parliamentary election and helped form its first ever government, 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 person should receive assistance to return to Norway. The Solberg cabinet undertook the repatriation despite the protests from the Progress Party, over what they considered humanitarian considerations.
2021–present: Sylvi Listhaug 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. Despite leading the polls for a short period in early 2025, the Progress Party eventually failed to win the
election, coming in second. The party gained seats in the Storting and ended up with 47 seats, the highest seat count in the party's history, with Sylvi Listhaug also becoming the leader of the largest opposition party. == Ideology and political positions ==