Workers' Youth League Membership Scandal

The Workers' Youth League membership scandal was a political scandal, where leaders of the Workers' Youth League (AUF) was charged of deliberately inflating membership numbers to receive increased government funding. Two former treasurers and two former leaders of the Oslo chapter were found guilty of fraud, and given prison sentences, for having unlawfully received NOK 648,000 in grants from the City of Oslo between 1992 and 1994. The convicted were Ragnar Bøe Elgsaas, Anders Hornslien, Bjørn Jarle Rødberg Larsen and Anders Greif Mathisen. Anders Mathisen's sentence was suspended.

The unlawful practice of submitting inflated membership numbers to the city council offices had been accepted as a common norm for various political youth organisations, and it is believed that the leadership of the parties involved were aware of this practice. Only four members were prosecuted and jailed. Several former members of the AUF, many leading politicians of that time, were not charged. Among them was then Prime Minister Thorbjørn Jagland, and current Prime Minister, Jens Stoltenberg.

Read more about Workers' Youth League Membership Scandal:  Background, Investigation, Court Case and Charges, Verdict

Famous quotes containing the words youth, league, membership and/or scandal:

    We live in an age when to be young and to be indifferent can be no longer synonymous. We must prepare for the coming hour. The claims of the Future are represented by suffering millions; and the Youth of a Nation are the trustees of Posterity.
    Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881)

    He will deliver you from six troubles; in seven no harm shall touch you. In famine he will redeem you from death, and in war from the power of the sword. You shall be hidden from the scourge of the tongue, and shall not fear destruction when it comes. At destruction and famine you shall laugh, and shall not fear the wild animals of the earth. For you shall be in league with the stones of the field, and the wild animals shall be at peace with you.
    Bible: Hebrew, Job 5:19-23.

    The two real political parties in America are the Winners and the Losers. The people don’t acknowledge this. They claim membership in two imaginary parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, instead.
    Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (b. 1922)

    Gossip isn’t scandal and it’s not merely malicious. It’s chatter about the human race by lovers of the same. Gossip is the tool of the poet, the shop-talk of the scientist, and the consolation of the housewife, wit, tycoon and intellectual. It begins in the nursery and ends when speech is past.
    Phyllis McGinley (1905–1978)