Catholic Labour Party (Sainte-Chloé)

Parti Catholique des Travailleurs
Abbreviation	PCT
President	Michel Thiele
Premier	Genevieve Chevallier
Party Chair	Henri Verlois
Founder	Raymond Rivière and Camille Pétain
Founded	17 April 1953
Merger of	Catholic Party and Labour Party
Newspaper	Christus Vincit La Croix (affiliated)
Student wing	Catholic Labour Students
Youth wing	Catholic Youth
Membership (2020)	942,921
Ideology	Sotirian Democracy Social Conservativism Trade Unionism Corporatism Catholic social teaching Syncretic politics
Political position	Centre-right (From Centre to Right)
Religion	Solarian Catholic Church
Colours	Blue and Yellow
Slogan	"Dieu, Patrie, Travail" (God, Fatherland, Labour)
Première Chambre	113 / 179
Deuxième Chambre	16 / 65
Provincial Governments	381 / 643
Political parties

The Catholic Labour Party (Gaullican: Parti Catholique des Travailleurs), often abbreviated as the PCT, is a centre-right political party in Sainte-Chloé. It is one of Sainte-Chloé's two major parties alongside with its rival, the Social Democrat Party. It is the current and historically main ruling party of Sainte-Chloé.

Founded in 1953 in a merger between the Catholic Party and Labour Party by Camille Pétain and Raymond Rivière respectively, it was founded to form a united front against the control of the Democratic Party over the United Provinces, and to advocate for the creation of an independent Sainte-Chloé in place of the federal model of several Arucian states. Combining a platform of constitutional reform, the newly-formed party won the 1953 Parliamentary elections and triggered a Constitutional crisis and forced a referendum for indepedence. It was the driving force behind the 1954 Constitution of Sainte-Chloé, and became the primary ruling party of the independent state, with its success forcing the other parties to form the Social Democratic Party, creating the two-party system which Sainte-Chloé still operates under. Due to a variety of causes, most notably the economic crises which plagued the Social Democrat governments, the Catholic Labour has usually controlled the government for long periods of time with comfortable majorities.

The party's ideological roots stems from the pre-Great War Holistique movement, which embraces the idea of Catholic state, saying that the laws of the Republic must be influenced by Catholic social teaching. Socially, the party is socially conservative, generally supporting traditional values, and is heavily against social reform on policies such as abortion and same-sex marriage. The party is also committed to publically funding and promoting Catholic institutions and schools. Economically, the party is corporatist, and has from its beginning been a firm supporter of trade unions, especially religious ones. While ideologically opposed to both socialism and capitalism as forms of materialism, it pursues a middle-ground between the two with a social market economy. The party also is Pro-Gaullican, being in part inspired by the Catholic Labour Union structuring the constitution in part off of Gaullica's model, as well as promoting Sainte-Chloé's Gaullican heritage.

Since creation of the independent Sainte-Chloé in 1954, the Catholic Labour Party has been the dominant force in Chloéois politics, having controlled a government in Parliament for a total of 47 years, well over twice the 19 years which the Social Democrats have had a government. The party has also fielded 5 out of 9 Presidents; of these, three have served two terms, unlike any of the Social Democratic Presidents. The Catholic Labour Party is the current ruling party of Sainte-Chloé, under the Presidency of Michel Thiele and the Premiership of Genevieve Chevallier. It also currently has a majority of seats in the Première Chambre and a majority of provincial appointed seats in the Deuxième Chambre.

History

Origins

The Party has its ideological roots in the later stages of the Colony of Sainte-Chloé. Although slavery had been abolished in 1830, many Bahiaux still lived in poor conditions and without education by the late 1860s. The policy of Gaullicanization had already seen success among the more affluent free Bahiaux communities, including such individuals as Charles Saint-Pierre. Together with the Archbishop of Port de la Sainte, Jean-Baptiste d'Aste, Saint-Pierre founded the Holistique ("holistic") movement, which sought the "spiritual, educational, moral and economic betterment" for all of the Bahiaux on Sainte-Chloé. As this fit in with the Gaullicanization policies of the colonial authorities, the measure was largely approved. Schools were set up, mostly paid from Church funds, to educate the Bahiaux communities in the basics of Catholic teaching, to read and speak in the Gaullican language, training for kinds of labour, and to provide oppurtunity for further education for those who wished it. This program quickly achieved its intial aims and increased in size and scope, which saw an increase in priests from the Bahiaux, many of whom went on to further education in their own communities. The movement largely achieved its ends, and set up an educational system which helped to increasingly integrate the Bahiaux into the Gaullican colonial society by the early twentieth century. The group was not without its opponents from the white community, which viewed the former slaves with disdain, or from certain Bahiaux thinkers, who argued that the Holistique movement was destroying their Bahian heritage and "whitewashing" them.

In addition to the education and Gaullicanization, the Church also supported the rising labour movement in the late 19th and the early 20th century as the country began to industrialize. Supported by Papal documents protecting the rights of workers, the Church was quick to sponsor many of the early trade unions which arose in the country. Because of this, the Labour movement for the most part was tied to the Catholic Church from some of the earlier stages, and began to develop close ties with the thinkers of the Holistique movement, who saw the support of trade unions as an integral part of the economic "betterment" of the Bahiaux communities. They developed an idea of a corporatist society under Sotirian virtues, as being instrumental to the rise of both capitalism and socialism, both of which were percieved as materialistic and opposed to Catholic ideals. In response to the shift away from socialism, a secular, more socialistic labour movement of other trade unions split off from the main labour movement. These developments led to the creation of the closely aligned Catholic and Labour Parties.

With the collapse of the Gaullican Empire during the Great War, Sainte-Chloé was placed under a Community of Nations Trusteeship known as the Arucian Federation. The appointed Governor-General, Pierre Voloix, founded the Democratic Party, which had support from mostly white elites, which was initially the largest and most successful party in Sainte-Chloé.

Electoral History

Presidential Elections

Election	Party candidate	Votes	%	Result
1954	Camille Pétain	XXXX	54.74%	Elected Y
1960		XXXX	67.39%	Elected Y
1966	Guillaume Vermonte	XXXX	49.43%	Lost N
1972	Pierre Leroy	XXXX	53.22%	Elected Y
1978	Dominique Monteclare	XXXX	48.81%	Lost N
1984	Philippe Leclercq	XXXX	57.63%	Elected Y
1990		XXXX	59.74%	Elected Y
1996	Auguste d'Estermont	XXXX	20.44%	Lost N
2002		XXXX	18.62%	Lost N
2008	Jaques Durand	XXXX	57.33%	Elected Y
2014		XXXX	53.75%	Elected Y
2020	Michel Thiele	XXXX	51.22%	Elected Y

Première Chambre

Election	Première Chambre					Rank	Government	Première Leader
	Votes	%	±pp	Seats won	+/−
1954	XXX	XX.XX%	New	65 / 95	65	#1	Majority government	Raymond Rivière
1958	XXXX	XX.XX%	X.XX%	71 / 95	6	#1	Majority government	Raymond Rivière
1962	XXXX	XX.XX%	X.XX%	75 / 95	4	#1	Majority government	Raymond Rivière
1966	XXXX	XX.XX%	XX.XX%	59 / 121	16	#2	Opposition	Raymond Rivière
1970	XXXX	XX.XX%	X.XX%	64 / 121	5	#1	Majority government	François Laurent
1974	XXXX	XX.XX%	X.XX%	66 / 121	2	#1	Majority government	François Laurent
1978	XXXX	XX.XX%	XX.XX%	60 / 121	6	#2	Opposition	François Laurent
1981	XXXX	XX.XX%	X.XX%	79 / 121	19	#1	Majority government	Dominique Monteclare
1985	XXXX	XX.XX%	X.XX%	88 / 131	9	#1	Majority government	Dominique Monteclare
1989	XXXX	XX.XX%	X.XX%	91 / 131	3	#1	Majority government	Jean-Baptiste Florent
1993	XXXX	XX.XX%	X.XX%	89 / 131	2	#1	Majority government	Jean-Baptiste Florent
1997	XXXX	XX.XX%	XX.XX%	74 / 149	15	#2	Opposition	Jean-Baptiste Florent
2001	XXXX	XX.XX%	XX.XX%	68 / 149	6	#2	Opposition	Jean-Baptiste Florent
2005	XXXX	XX.XX%	XX.XX%	79 / 161	11	#2	Opposition	Jean-Baptiste Florent
2008	XXXX	XX.XX%	X.XX%	95 / 161	16	#1	Majority government	Jean-Baptiste Florent
2012	XXXX	XX.XX%	X.XX%	99 / 161	4	#1	Majority government	Bernard Blanc
2016	XXXX	XX.XX%	X.XX%	99 / 179	0	#1	Majority government	Bernard Blanc
2020	XXXX	XX.XX%	XX.XX%	89 / 179	10	#2	Opposition	Bernard Blanc
2021	XXXX	XX.XX%	X.XX%	113 / 179	20	#1	Majority government	Genevieve Chevallier

Deuxième Chambre

It is important to note that in the Deuxième, there are only 28 Partisan seats, which every provincial legislature appoints 4 seats to appoint from. The remaining 37 seats are non partisan and either appointed by the President or reserved for the country's Bishops. Majority here signifies the possession of 15 or more seats of the elected parliament seats.

Election	Deuxième Chambre		Rank	Government	Deuxième Leader
	Seats won	+/−
1954	24 / 65	24	#1	Elected majority	Pierre Leroy
1960	24 / 65	0	#1	Elected majority	Pierre Leroy
1966	16 / 65	8	#1	Elected majority	Pierre Leroy
1972	20 / 65	4	#1	Elected majority	Philippe Leclercq
1978	16 / 65	4	#1	Elected majority	Philippe Leclercq
1984	24 / 65	8	#1	Elected majority	Auguste d'Estermont
1990	28 / 65	4	#1	Elected majority	Auguste d'Estermont
1996	20 / 65	8	#1	Elected majority	Thomas Garlan
2002	12 / 65	8	#2	Elected minority	Thomas Garlan
2008	20 / 65	8	#1	Elected majority	Veronique Rivière
2014	20 / 65	0	#1	Elected majority	Veronique Rivière
2020	16 / 65	4	#1	Elected majority	Claude Sonat