Political Career
Simonsen was during the 1970s active in the nonpartisan youth organisation Moderate Youth (Moderat Ungdom), and was the chairman of its Rogaland chapter from 1975 to 1977. He joined Anders Lange's Party in 1975, which was renamed the Progress Party in 1977, citing a great admiration of the party founder Anders Lange (who though had died in 1974). Simonsen held numerous positions within the party, including chairman of the Rogaland chapter of the Youth of the Progress Party from 1978 to 1981 and vice chairman of the Progress Party from 1991 to 1993. From 1989 to 2005 he was also an MP.
On 19 October 2001, the Progress Party expelled Simonsen from the party after 25 years as a member. The same day, the party's secretary general Geir Mo made the statement to the Norwegian news broadcast NTB that "the Progress Party has, after a complete evaluation, decided that it is best for both parties to leave each other". Prior to the exclusion, Simonsen had faced scrutiny due to a Rikets Tilstand documentary on TV2, alleging that he had used his position as representative to help a friend obtain a liquor license. Simonsen however hold that party chairman Carl I. Hagen misused his position to exclude him together with other high-ranking members in 2001 for rather non-existent reasons. He has since had a poor relationship with both Carl I. Hagen and his wife Eli Hagen, though he remains largely on good terms with Progress Party politicians in general, including Siv Jensen.
Since then, Simonsen sat as an independent MP until 2005. From 2003 to 2004, he was vice chairman of the Democrats, a party founded in 2002 largely by other Progress Party members who had been excluded around the same time as Simonsen. He withdrew from the Democrats as a member in 2007. While he was not a member of the Democrats, he however ran as the top candidate for the party in Akershus for the 2009 parliamentary election.
Read more about this topic: Jan Simonsen
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