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Is It a Policy Change in FrP?

All those immigrants who have legal residence in Norway have no reason not to vote for Progress Party, said Progress Party leader Siv Jensen during Oslo Progress Party's annual meeting.

During the opening, the head of Oslo Progress Party Youth, Christer Kjølstad said they must stop talking disparagingly about the religion of Islam.

- We have many immigrants who could vote for us, but they do not do it because we're talking negatively about their religion, continued Kjølstad. He called FrP supporters and politicians to learn to distinguish between religion and culture.

Another young FrP politician Siri Ulleberg similarly stated that he grew up in eastern part of Oslo within immigrant culture and he suggested organizing courses about the difference between religion and culture. Ulleberg added saying, "Islam is not dangerous in itself, the extremist are dangerous."

The Progress Party (Fremskrittspartiet) is described as conservative and right-wing populist. Ever since its foundation, other parties have consistently refused the Progress Party's efforts to join any governing coalition at the state level. The reasons have mainly included concerns about the party's alleged position on immigration issues. From the second half of the 1980s the economic and welfare aspects of immigration policy were mainly a focus of Progress Party criticism, including the strains placed by immigration on the welfare state. During the 1990s the party shifted to focus more on cultural and ethnic issues and conflicts. In 1993, it was the first party in Norway to use the notion of "integration politics" in its party programme.

A poll conducted by Utrop in August 2009 showed that 10% of immigrants in Norway would vote for the Progress Party, only beaten by the Labor Party (38% and 56% respectively), when asked. More specifically, this constituted 9% of both African and Eastern European immigrants, 22% of Western European immigrants and 3% of Asian immigrants. Thus, it was above all immigrants from Western countries that contributed to the Progress Party, whereas those from the Middle East and Asia were very unlikely to support it; however, many immigrants from Africa also voted for the Progress Party. Recently people of immigrant background are also increasingly active in the party, most notably Iranian-Norwegian Deputy Member of Parliament Mazyar Keshvari and Indian-Norwegian youth politician Himanshu Gulati.

TAGS: FrP, Siv Jensen, oslo, Islam, Immigrants, Elections

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