The Progress Party (, FrP) is a right-wing populist political party in Denmark which was founded in 1972.

The party's founder, the former lawyer Mogens Glistrup, gained widespread popularity as well as notoriety in the country after he appeared on Danish television, stating that he paid 0% in income tax. The party was placed on the right of the political spectrum as it believed in radical tax cuts (including removing the income tax altogether) and vowed to cut government spending. In the late 1970s, its agenda was "the gradual abolition of income tax, the disbandment of most of the civil service, the abolition of the diplomatic service and the scrapping of 90% of all legislation". From the 1980s, the party also adopted anti-immigration as a key issue. The party's initial issues were less bureaucracy, abolition of the income tax and simpler law paragraphs. The party entered the Danish Parliament after the "electoral earthquake" of the 1973 Danish parliamentary election.

The Progress Party's seats in parliament fell to 20 in 1979, partly due to internal splits between "pragmatists" (slappere) who wanted to pursue cooperation with mainstream parties; and "fundamentalists" (strammere) who wanted the party to stand alone. Glistrup led the party for the 2001 Danish parliamentary election, but it had lost almost all its support and received less than one percent of the vote.

Ideology

Main issues

The party's political issues were:

  1. Abolishing income tax.
  2. Cleaning up the law jungle.
  3. Reducing bureaucracy.
  4. Putting a stop to immigration from Islamic countries and researching its consequences.

Glistrup added the fourth point in the 1980s.

Political positions

By 2010, its entire political program consisted of the following points, with the headline "Stop the immigration":

  1. Abolishment of the income tax.
  2. Drastic reduction of bureaucracy.
  3. Drastic reduction of the "law jungle".
  4. Restoration of borders and border control product.
  5. Stop of immigration.
  6. Stop the allocation of Danish citizenship.
  7. Confrontation with the integration policy.
  8. Locate the responsibility for the mass immigration.
  9. Denmark gradually out of the EU for trade throughout the world.

Party leadership

Political leaders

  • Mogens Glistrup (1972–1985)
  • Pia Kjærsgaard (1985–1995)
  • Kirsten Jacobsen (1995–1999)
  • Aage Brusgaard (1999–2001)
  • Aase Heskjær (2001–2003)
  • Jørn Herkild (2003–2006)
  • Henrik Søndergård (2006–2007)
  • Ove Jensen (2007–2009)
  • Ernst Simonsen (2009–2010)
  • Niels Højland (2010–)

Organisational leaders

  • Ulrik Poulsen (1974)
  • Palle Tillisch (1975–1976)
  • A. Roland Petersen (1976–1979)
  • V.A. Jacobsen (1980–1984)
  • Poul Sustmann Hansen (1984)
  • Ove Jensen (1984)
  • Helge Dohrmann (1984–1985)
  • Annette Just (1985–1986)
  • Johannes Sørensen (1987–1993)
  • Poul Lindholm Nielsen (1994)
  • Johannes Sørensen (1995–1999)
  • Per Larsen (1999)
  • Aage Brusgaard (1999–2001)
  • Aase Heskjær (2001–2003)
  • Jørn Herkild (2003–2006)
  • Henrik Søndergård (2006–2007)
  • Ove Jensen (2007–2009)
  • Ernst Simonsen (2009–2010)
  • Niels Højland (2010–)

Election results

Folketing

{|class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"

!Election

!No. of total votes

!% of popular vote

!No. of seats won

!Government

|-

!1973

|485,289

|15.9%

|

|

|-

!1975

|414,219

|13.6%

|

|

|-

!1977

|453,792

|14.6%

|

|

|-

!1979

|349,243

|11.0%

|

|

|-

!1981

|278,383

|8.9%

|

|

|-

!1984

|120,461

|3.6%

|

|

|-

!1987

|160,461

|4.8%

|

|

|-

!1988

|298,132

|9.0%

|

|

|-

!1990

|208,484

|6.4%

|

|

|-

!1994

|214,057

|6.4%

|

|

|-

!1998

|82,437

|2.4%

|

|

|-

!2001

|19,340

|0.6%

|

|

|}

European Parliament

{|class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"

|-

!Election

!No. of total votes

!% of popular vote

!No. of seats won

|-

!1979

|100,702

|5.7%

|

|-

!1984

|68,747

|3.4%

|

|-

!1989

|93,985

|5.3%

|

|-

!1994

|59,687

|2.9%

|

|-

!1999

|14,233

|0.7%

|

|}

See also

  • New Democracy similar party in Sweden in the 1990s.

References

  • Fremskridtspartiet