Progress Party

The Progress Party was a Swedish right-wing populist party, formed in 1968 from the remnants of the Civic Assembly (MbS) and the Assembly for Progress. These two parties were originally attempts at bourgeois cooperation and had their main base in Skåne. They saw themselves as a Swedish equivalent to the Progress Party in Norway and the Progress Party in Denmark.

During the 1980s, the party developed in a xenophobic direction. In 1986, the party ceased to exist at the national level when it merged with Bevara Sverige Svenskt to form the Sweden Party, a collaboration that was later terminated. Former Progress Party members instead participated in the founding of the Sweden Democrats in 1988. However, the Progress Party survived in a few municipalities until the mid-2000s.

The party was founded under the leadership of former MP Bertil Rubin, who had previously been active in the Centre Party. The goal was initially to put up a broad campaign for the local elections in 1970, but due to a lack of funding, the actual campaign was rather modest. This led to a significant loss of blood in the organization.

However, they had managed to take some local mandates and some local branches continued their activities, for example in Motala and Stockholm, under the leadership of Stefan Herrmann. However, the party organization never became stable and was plagued by internal strife and defections. The party mainly pursued issues such as tax cuts and demands for cheaper alcohol. However, from the beginning of the 1980s, the immigration issue became increasingly important and in particular the Stockholm branch with Stefan Herrmann took a critical stance.

The change in orientation led to even greater internal tensions, which ended with the group around Herrmann leaving the Progress Party and instead forming the Sweden Party.

The remainder of the party gathered before the 1985 election around Tony Wiklander, an established municipal politician in Åstorp who had defected from VPK and previously from the Social Democrats and who ran a local party, the Löntagarepartiet. Together with other local parties with a primary base in Skåne, the Progress Party continued to operate, with some success at the local level in various municipalities.

Municipal representation was obtained in Motala 1985–1988, Åstorp 1985–2002, Bjuv 1988–2006, Helsingborg 1991–1994 and Landskrona 1994–2002.

In the 1991 parliamentary election, New Democracy ran with a similar policy, which led to the Progress Party's main financier Carl Lundström stopping supporting the party. The Helsingborg branch was first transformed into Svensk Samling and merged with the Sweden Democrats in 1998. Before the 1998 election, the Progress Party branch in Älvkarleby joined the Sweden Democrats, a branch that had received one of FsP's few mandates. The Älvkarleby branch was then in a dispute with Tony Wiklander over who was elected party leader, Wiklander or Gun-Britt Holmgren. Some former Progress Party members joined the SD and closed down their local party Svensk Samling after failing in the 1998 election.

Other municipal branches, including party leader Tony Wiklander's branch in Åstorp, waited until after the split of the Sweden Democrats in 2001 to then join the Sweden Democrats. Other people who had previously been active in the Progress Party switched to the National Democrats.

In Åstorp, Kommunens framtid was formed as a replacement for the 2002 election. Tony Wiklander was on the SD's parliamentary list.

Chairperson: Bertil Rubin (1968–1979), Nils Lindgren (1979–1982), Stefan Herrmann (1982–1986/87), Tony Wiklander (leader in Scania, 1980s–2002)