Christian Democratic Party (Norway)

The Christian Democratic Party (Bokmål: Kristelig Folkeparti, Nynorsk: Kristeleg Folkeparti, lit. 'Christian People's Party', KrF; Northern Sami: Risttalaš Álbmotbellodat) is a Christian-democratic political party in Norway founded in 1933. The party is an observer member of the European People's Party (EPP). It currently holds three seats in the Parliament, having won 3.8% of the vote in the 2021 parliamentary election. The current leader of the party is Olaug Bollestad.

The Christian Democrats' leader from 1983 to 1995, Kjell Magne Bondevik, was one of the most prominent political figures in modern Norway, serving as Prime Minister from 1997 to 2000 and 2001 to 2005. Under the old leadership of Bondevik and Valgerd Svarstad Haugland, the party was to some extent radicalized and moved towards the left. Due largely to their poor showing in the 2009 elections, the party has seen a conflict between its conservative and liberal wings. Until 2019, the leader was Knut Arild Hareide, who led the party into a more liberal direction as part of a "renewal" process, and introduced climate change and environmentalism as the party's most important issues. However, the liberal turn ended in 2019 and the party has since moved sharply to the right. Hareide wanted the party to cooperate with the social democrats, but narrowly lost an internal struggle to the faction that wanted to collaborate with the far-right and anti-immigrant Progress Party. Since 2019 the party has opposed LGBT rights and been criticized as "the voice of transphobia" by LGBT rights groups and centre-left parties.