Knut Henning Thygesen (born 7 April 1953 in

Risør is a municipality in Agder county, Norway. It is located on the Skagerrak coast in the traditional region of Sørlandet. The administrative centre of Risør municipality is the town of Risør. There are many villages in Risør such as Akland, ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

) is a Norwegian

author An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states: "''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...

and

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...

for the Red Party. He was elected as

mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well a ...

of Risør on 11 September 2007 in a direct mayor election as part of the 2007 municipal election with 44.5% of the votes. He is the only mayor ever for Red or any of its predecessors.

Biography

He started education as an

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

from the

Norwegian Institute of Technology The Norwegian Institute of Technology (Norwegian: ''Norges tekniske høgskole'', NTH) was a science institute in Trondheim, Norway. It was established in 1910, and existed as an independent technical university for 58 years, after which it was m ...

Trondheim Trondheim ( , , ; sma, Tråante), historically Kaupangen, Nidaros and Trondhjem (), is a city and municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. As of 2020, it had a population of 205,332, was the third most populous municipality in Norway, and ...

where he among other things was editor of the student newspaper

Under Dusken Under Dusken is the official student newspaper in Trondheim, Norway, with a circulation of 10,000 copies. Founded in 1914, it is Scandinavia's oldest student newspaper, and the second largest student newspaper in Norway after Oslo's '' Univer ...

. After two years he moved to

Bærum Bærum () is a municipality in the Greater Oslo Region in Norway that forms an affluent suburb of Oslo on the west coast of the city. Bærum is Norway's fifth largest municipality with a population of 128,760 (2021). It is part of the electoral ...

and started training as a

construction worker A construction worker is a worker employed in the physical construction of the built environment and its infrastructure. Definition By some definitions, workers may be engaged in manual labour as unskilled or semi-skilled workers; they may be sk ...

. After finishing his qualifications he moved back to Risør. He spent 1979 in the

Royal Norwegian Army The Norwegian Army ( no, Hæren) is the land warfare service branch of the Norwegian Armed Forces. The Army is the oldest of the Norwegian service branches, established as a modern military organization under the command of the King of Norway i ...

. He has worked as a construction worker, architect, teacher and as an author since.

Politics

Thygesen's interest for politics started at upper secondary school in the early 1970s, with the three topics Norwegian EEC membership, the protest against the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

and

environmentalism Environmentalism or environmental rights is a broad philosophy, ideology, and social movement regarding concerns for environmental protection and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seek ...

. He was heavily engaged in the protests against the planned

nuclear power plant A nuclear power plant (NPP) is a thermal power station in which the heat source is a nuclear reactor. As is typical of thermal power stations, heat is used to generate steam that drives a steam turbine connected to a electric generator, generato ...

s that were suggested built in Risør. Both in Trondheim, Bærum and in the army he studied

marxism Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...

and environmentalism. He protested the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

's suppression of

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russ ...

an countries. In 1978 he joined Red Youth (RU) and created one of the largest RU chapters in the country. He also for a shorter period was a member of the Workers' Communist Party. Tygesen was a candidate for

Red Electoral Alliance Red Electoral Alliance ( nb, Rød Valgallianse, nn, Raud Valallianse, RV) was an alliance of far-left groups formed into a Norwegian political party to promote revolutionary socialism ideals into the Norwegian parliament. The party dissolved itse ...

(what is now Red) for the first time in the 1983 election, but was not elected. But in the 1987 election he was elected and was elected for the sixth time in 2007 election. The last period he has also sat on the executive board. He was elected directly as mayor in the 2007 as the first mayor for Red in history.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thygesen, Knut Henning Red Party (Norway) politicians Aust-Agder politicians People from Risør Norwegian Institute of Technology alumni 1953 births Living people