Red Electoral Alliance (, , RV) was an alliance of far-left groups formed into a Norwegian political party to promote revolutionary socialist ideals into the Norwegian parliament. The party dissolved itself on 10 March 2007, when it participated in the founding of a new party, Red (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) (), the Red Electoral Alliance became an independent party in 1991, and scrapped many Leninist ideas. It remained a revolutionary socialist party that promoted an ideology based upon Marxism.
From 1993 to 1997, Erling Folkvord represented RV in Stortinget, 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, 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 or Oslo. However their best result was 3.4% in Hordaland.
On 10 March 2007, the party dissolved itself, as it merged with the AKP into a new party, Red, 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 Allern1 1975–1979 — Pål Steigan1 1979–1981 — Hilde Haugsgjerd 1981–1983 — Finn Sjue 1983–1987 — Jahn Arne Olsen 1987–1995 — Aksel Nærstad 1995–1997 — Jørn Magdahl 1997–2003 — Aslak Sira Myhre 2003–2007 — Torstein Dahle
1 Until 1979, the leader of AKP was also the leader of RV.
Parliamentary election results Election year # ofoverall votes % ofoverall vote # ofoverall seats won +/– 1973 9,360 0.43 1977 14,515 0.63 0 1981 17,844 0.72 0 1985 14,818 0.57 0 1989 *22,139 *0.83 0 1993 26,360 1.07 1 1997 43,252 1.67 1 2001 30,015 1.18 0 2005 32,355 1.23 0 *: 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