Norway's dark secret


It gives more money to the developing world than any other country and its standard of living is officially recognised as the best that money can buy but Norway has a dark secret: it has become home to Europe's most successful far-right movement.

The far-right Progress party is not in power yet (although the country's minority government relies on it to pass legislation) but that could change and pressure is growing for it to be given a seat at the top table.

It already has 26 seats in the country's 165-member parliament and captured almost 15% of the vote in elections last year.

However, recent opinion polls show that its strength has grown considerably and that 33.6% of Norway's population now support it. Almost half of the country's 4.5m inhabitants also believe that it is time for the party to take the reins of power and be brought in from the cold.

That makes the Progress party the country's most popular by far. Its poll ratings make the National Front in France or the Danish People's party seem fringe parties by comparison.

And if the current centre-right coalition government were to fall, the Progress party could be in an ideal position to seize a slice of real power. It is true that the Christian Democrat prime minister, Kjell Magne Bondevik, has ruled out sharing power with the Progress party but his own position grows weaker and weaker by the day.

The Progress party's success is in large part due to its charismatic leader, Carl Hagen, popularly known as "King Carl", who has laboured to give what used to be an unruly hard right party a more respectable image purging it of its most outspoken and maverick elements.

However, the party's most radical ideas remain unchanged. Its symbol may be a juicy red apple but its policies are far from wholesome. It advocates abolishing development aid to the third world because, it says, the money is spent on "arms and luxury goods" for the elite. And poverty, it argues, is a result of poor countries' inability to organise themselves.

Norway already operates a restrictive immigration policy but Mr Hagen would go further. A maximum of 1,000 immigrants a year would be allowed in, and asylum seekers who broke Norwegian law would be repatriated.

The party also wants a national referendum on whether any more foreigners at all should be admitted -Norway has about 250,000 - and it is keen to test new arrivals for Aids.

It also has a resolutely populist approach to another issue that is dear to people's hearts - tax. While Norway's political elite believes that financial prudence should be the order of the day and that the country's oil millions should be invested for future generations, the Progress party advocates a more free-spending approach.

Its attractive solution is to have your proverbial cake and eat it. It wants lower income taxes, lower alcohol taxes, lower taxes on cars, and provide more money for pensioners and more funds for what it regards as Norway's failing welfare system.

We have all this oil wealth, the argument goes, so why not spend it now and enjoy it? It is an argument which has struck a chord with many ordinary Norwegians and establishment politicians who oppose "King Carl" usually end up looking tax-happy and mean.

It is also an approach which is obviously paying off. There are growing calls for the Progress party to be given a chance to show what it can do, even from its detractors.

"I think that we won't be rid of the "problem" the Progress party represents for the rest of Norwegian politics until Hagen really gets a chance to show what he stands for," Labour party veteran Thorbjoern Berntsen said recently.

Daily newspaper Dagbladet agrees: "Efforts in the past decade to keep Mr Hagen and the his party out in the political cold have so far only resulted in his party becoming larger and larger," a recent editorial concluded.

"Mr Hagen represents the only untried alternative, and therefore embodies the dream of something different. Until he is given responsibility for his (mis)deeds, he will continue to terrorise the established parties and drain them of voters.

"And anyway, the rightwing policies Mr Hagen wants are currently being pursued by the sitting government."

Perhaps because it is relatively small, not a member of the EU and has traditionally enjoyed an enviable reputation for social democracy and humanism, Norway's disturbing political metamorphosis has gone unnoticed.

But something is stirring in Norway and if things go on as they are it could become a beacon of hope for far-right politicians across the continent.