As mentioned previously, MDG was officially founded in 1988, following a wave of green political parties established in Europe as environmental awareness grew. In its first election in 1989, MDG received an underwhelming 0.4 % of the vote. The reason behind the low voter percentage was due to The Left Party and The Socialist Left Party portraying themselves as focusing on environmental sustainability before MDG entered the political sphere in Norway.
MDG continued to struggle in the next couple of decades, wavering between 0.1 % and 0.3 % of the vote in midterm and national elections. However, in the midterm elections of 2011, the party experienced a slight tournaround, with an average 0.9 % in the municipal elections and 1.1 % in the regional elections. In 2013, as detailed earlier, MDG experienced its real breakthrough with 2.8 % of the vote in the national election, securing a member in the Norwegian parliament. In 2017, MDG continued its momentum, with 3.2 % of the vote in the national elections (Jupskås, 2017).
MDG does not have a party leader. Instead, MDG has two spokespersons, one of each gender. The current spokespersons are Une Aina Bastholm, who is also the current representative of MDG in the Storting, and Rasmus Hansson, MDG’s representative in the Storting between 2013 and 2017 (Jupskås, 2017).