Per Borten

Per Borten was a Norwegian politician from the Centre Party and the 25th prime minister of Norway from 1965 to 1971. He led a four-party centre-right coalition government that consisted of the Conservative Party, the Liberal Party, the Christian Democratic Party and the Centre Party. He was also the chairman of the Centre Party from 1955 to 1967 and the parliamentary leader for his party from 1958 to 1965 and from 1971 to 1973. He served as a member of the Norwegian parliament from 1950 to 1977, representing the constituency of Sør-Trøndelag. He was also the mayor of his home municipality, Flå, from 1946 to 1955. He was educated as an agriculturist from the Norwegian College of Agriculture in 1939 and worked as a farmer on his family farm. Borten is credited for leading the modernization of what was then named Bondepartiet (the Agrarian Party) into today's Centre Party. He was an active opponent of Norway joining the European Union. He did not change the political course of Norway significantly, but contributed to further strengthening the welfare state and the public sector. Some of the most important achievements of his government were the introduction of the National Insurance Scheme, the Freedom of Information Act and the Press Subsidy. He was also an early advocate of environmental politics, at a time when the concept was barely known. He resigned as prime minister in 1971, after he was accused of leaking a confidential document about Norway's negotiations with the European Economic Community to a newspaper. Back in parliament, he was a vocal critic of the secret services' political surveillance, and later in life he was also active in the campaign for an international ban on nuclear weapons. He died of heart failure in 2005, at the age of 91.