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 Revolutionary socialism is a political philosophy, doctrine, and tradition within socialism that stresses the idea that a social revolution is necessary to bring about structural changes in society. More specifically, it is the view that revolut ...

ideals into the

Norwegian parliament The Storting ( no, Stortinget ) (lit. the Great Thing) is the supreme legislature of Norway, established in 1814 by the Constitution of Norway. It is located in Oslo. The unicameral parliament has 169 members and is elected every four years base ...

. The party dissolved itself on 10 March 2007, when it participated in the founding of a new party,

Red Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–740 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a secondar ...

(Rødt). Raud Ungdom or Rød Ungdom (Red Youth) was their youth organization.

History

While it was formed in 1973 as an election front for the Worker's Communist Party (marxist-leninist) (in Norwegian: ''Arbeidernes Kommunistparti (m-l), AKP(ml)''), the Red Electoral Alliance became an independent party in 1991, and after that, it scrapped many

Leninist Leninism is a political ideology developed by Russian Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin that proposes the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat led by a revolutionary vanguard party as the political prelude to the establishme ...

ideas. It remained a revolutionary party that, promoting an ideology based upon

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 ...

. From 1993 to 1997,

Erling Folkvord Erling Folkvord (born 15 June 1949) is a Norwegian politician for the Red party, and a former member of the Parliament of Norway. A revolutionary socialist, he was one of the leading members of the Workers' Communist Party and the Red Electora ...

represented RV in

Storting The Storting ( no, Stortinget ) (lit. the Great Thing) is the supreme legislature of Norway, established in 1814 by the Constitution of Norway. It is located in Oslo. The unicameral parliament has 169 members and is elected every four years bas ...

et, the Norwegian parliament. In 1997 the party got their highest recorded percentage of votes, with 1.7%. In spite of this, Folkvord lost his seat and no new seats were won. Torstein Dahle, an economist at

Bergen University College Western Norway University of Applied Sciences () or HVL is a Norwegian public institution of higher education, established in January 2017 through the merging of formerly independent colleges across five campuses: Bergen, Førde, Haugesund, Sog ...

, was elected leader in 2003 and re-elected in March 2005. Following the 2005 election it was clear that their work to regain their place in the parliament had failed. They received 1.2% of the national total of votes. It was clear that in order to be represented in parliament, they had to win a large share of votes in

Hordaland Hordaland () was a county in Norway, bordering Sogn og Fjordane, Buskerud, Telemark, and Rogaland counties. Hordaland was the third largest county, after Akershus and Oslo, by population. The county government was the Hordaland County Municipal ...

Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...

. However their best result was 3.4% in

. On 10 March 2007 the party dissolved itself, as it merged with the AKP into a new party,

, with Dahle as its leader. Due to Norwegian election laws, the name Red Electoral Alliance was kept for the 2007 local elections. The party currently has 57 representatives in town halls nationwide.

Party leaders

* 1973-1975 —

Sigurd Allern Sigurd Allern (born 5 September 1946) is a Norwegian media theorist and the first professor of journalism at the University of Oslo.Sigurd Al ...

¹ * 1975-1979 —

Pål Steigan Pål Steigan (born 31 May 1949) is a Norwegian writer and politician, best known as founder of the newspaper ''Klassekampen'' and the website '' Steigan.no''. He was leader of the Maoist Workers' Communist Party, AKP (m-l) from 1975 to 1984, and ...

¹ * 1979-1981 —

Hilde Haugsgjerd Hilde Haugsgjerd (born 7 July 1952) is a Norwegian newspaper editor. She was born in Oslo. She was the party leader of the Red Electoral Alliance from 1979 to 1981, and was married to the party's first leader Sigurd Allern from 1972 to 1977. She ...

* 1981-1983 —

Finn Sjue Finn Sjue (born 1943) is a Norwegian psychologist, politician, journalist and teacher. He was born in Vestfold. He edited the newspaper ''Klassekampen'' from 1973 to 1977. He chaired the Red Electoral Alliance from 1980 to 1982. He has later lectu ...

* 1983-1987 — Jahn Arne Olsen * 1987-1995 —

Aksel Nærstad Aksel Nærstad (1 January 1952 – 22 October 2022) was a Norwegian political activist and advisor. He chaired the Red Electoral Alliance from 1987 to 1995. From 1995 to 1997 he chaired the board of the newspaper ''Klassekampen''. He chaired the N ...

* 1995-1997 —

Jørn Magdahl Jørn Magdahl (born 7 April 1950) is a Norwegian politician. He was the leader of the Red Electoral Alliance Red Electoral Alliance ( nb, Rød Valgallianse, nn, Raud Valallianse, RV) was an alliance of far-left groups formed into a Norwegian p ...

* 1997-2003 —

Aslak Sira Myhre Aslak Sira Myhre (born 28 May 1973 in Stavanger) is a Norwegian culture administrator. Since 2014 he is director of the National Library of Norway. Myhre has been a leftwing politician, and was for a period leader of the former party Red Electora ...

* 2003-2007 — Torstein Dahle ¹ Until 1979, the leader of AKP was also the leader of RV.

Parliamentary election results

*: In 1989 RV participated in an electoral alliance with other groups called '' County Lists for Environment and Solidarity''.

References

External links

Rød Valgallianse (Red Electoral Alliance)
- Official web site
Rød Ungdom (Red Youth)
- Official site of the youth party
Election results for RV in the 2007 local elections
{{Red (Norway) 1973 establishments in Norway Communist parties in Norway Defunct political parties in Norway Political parties disestablished in 2007 Political parties established in 1973 Political party alliances in Norway Red Party (Norway) Workers' Communist Party (Norway)