Vidar Sveinung Kleppe (born 16 September 1963) is a Norwegian politician. He was a member of parliament and deputy leader of the Progress Party until he was suspended and left the party in 2001. He was the founder and leader of the Democrats party from 2002 to 2012, and has since 2003 held public office as a member of the Vest-Agder county council and the Kristiansand municipal council.

Kleppe was born in Bergen to CEO Erling Kleppe (1941–1989) and his wife Harriet Uthaug (1944–2018),^[1] and was raised in Fedje.^[2] He received education at a mechanical school from 1980 to 1981, and after this went to sea for a year. When he came back he worked as an industrial labourer in Kristiansand for four years, until 1987 when he was a businessman for two years.^[1] He was married in 1992 to Elin Dyrstad Kleppe, and has three children, two with Elin.^[3] For his wedding, Jan Simonsen was his best man.^[4] Kleppe wrote in 2021 that his wife Elin had died of cancer.^[3]

In 2005, the Christian conservative weekly newspaper Norge IDAG described him as a "Christian libertarian".^[23] When running for the 2007 local elections, Kleppe cited as his most important issues to fight for the weak in society and against poverty, as well as to stop the Islamisation and dechristianisation of Norway. To accomplish the latter, he sought to, among other things, remove all public economical support for Muslim religious societies.^[29] During the 1990s, he at various times suggested George H. W. Bush,^[30] the Salvation Army and Bill Clinton for the Nobel Peace Prize.^[31] He has publicly endorsed the controversial short film Fitna, made by Dutch politician Geert Wilders, and recommends everyone to see it.^[32]

In January 2009, Kleppe was denied membership of the eurosceptic organisation Nei til EU as he, according to its leader Heming Olaussen (a former member of the Socialist Left Party), stood for "racist attitudes".^[33] This action led to the resignations of a large number of members, including one county secretary citing it to be totally unintelligible to deny Kleppe membership, as he was "one of the greatest supporters of Nei til EU during the last EU-referendum".^[34] Kleppe, regarding this event, even received support from one of his strongest political rivals, Harald Sødal, a former Christian Democratic deputy mayor of Kristiansand.^[35]

After his suspension from the Progress Party in 2001, it has been noted that many of the proposals raised by Kleppe earlier, then being very controversial even within the Progress Party, has since been "copied" by the party. This include a proposal of limiting kontantstøtte (social security for children choosing not to go to kindergarten) to only Norwegian citizens in 1998, which was later raised by Per Sandberg in 2004.^[36] With his tough line against Islam, he later also welcomed controversial episodes of criticism of Islam by Carl I. Hagen in 2004^[37] and Siv Jensen in 2009.^[38]

In 1999 Kleppe was twice assaulted, both times by the pouring of beer over his head. First by Jan Otto Hauge, then editor of Journalisten, and secondly by singer-songwriter Lillebjørn Nilsen, with the latter getting a 100,000 kr fine, as well as losing a culture award he had been awarded by the municipality of Oslo.^[39]

In August 2005 Kleppe was physically assaulted by a former Workers' Communist Party deputy leader,^[40] and was thrown eggs at, physically assaulted, and had equipment for a public speech sabotaged by members of a demonstration by left-wing organisations SOS Racism, Blitz-movement and Socialist Youth.^[41][42] In 2003 he also received numerous death threats.^[43]