Liberal Democratic Party (Belhavia)
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Liberal Democratic Party | |
|---|---|
| File:Lib Dems logo.png | |
| Chairperson | Douglas Hayworth |
| Founder | Joshua Levan-Cohen |
| Founded | November 10, 1922 |
| Preceded by | Liberal Party and Democratic Party |
| Headquarters | Provisa |
| Student wing | College Democrats |
| Youth wing | Young Lib Dems |
| Ideology | Progressivism Third Way Centrism Internal Factions: Social liberalism Centrism Keysnesianism Jewish left |
| Political position | Center-Left |
| International affiliation | Association of Liberal and Democratic Parties |
| Colors | Light Red Olive Green |
| Seats in the Imperial Senate | 30 / 70
|
| Website | |
| www.liberaldemocratNB.com | |
The Liberal Democratic Party, also commonly called the Liberal Democrats or usually just the Lib Dems (colloquially), is one of two de facto major contemporary political parties in Belhavia opposed by the Conservative Party on the right and the third-party Libertarian Party on the far right.
It was founded as a merging of the minority, opposition caucuses of the Liberal Party and Democratic Party, which had been swept into the minority when the Federalists made a ruling coalition with the newly ascendent Fascist Party after the 1922 midterms of the Imperial Senate.
Starting in 1955, it would serve as the major left-oriented political party opposed by the newly created right-leaning Conservative Party in the Fourth Party System.
After being formed in 1922, it would serve in the political minority for nearly all of the next twenty-five years, until the fall of the Galarian dictatorship in 1945 opened up the political process once more. With the then-conservative Federalists disgraced by their associated with the Galarian regime, the "Lib Dems" quickly won large electoral mandates in the post-Galarian political landscape between 1945 and 1960, when the Conservatives were able to win back the Presidential Palace under Edward Kalian.
However, many political historians mark the Lib Dems' ascendency as the Belhavian "Liberal Heyday" (1946 - 1981). Empowered for much of the first fifteen years after the Galarian regime's fall, the party pushed through a series of left-wing measures, including a progressive income tax, a capital gains tax, a inheritance tax, a Social Security scheme, and shifted the political-economic consensus from neo-corporatism under Galarian and classical economics promoted before the Galarian era to Keynesian economic theory as the dominant political consensus for government fiscal policy.
Since the "Settas Revolution" in 1981, the Liberal Democrats have only held the presidency for 2 non-consecutive terms (eight years) under Garret Holleran (1993 - 1997; 2001 - 2005) as well as narrow majorities of the Imperial Senate in those same periods.
There have been 6 Lib Dem presidents, the first being Akiva Ben-Cohen, serving from 1929 to 1937. Post-Galarian the first Lib Dem chief executive was Matthew Rabin, serving from 1945 to 1953, and the most recent being Garret Holleran, serving from 1993 to 1997, and 2001 to 2005.
The party's platform is based upon Belhavian center-left Third Way syncretism and centrism, though it has strong far-left and liberal wings.
In the 112th Senate, elected in 2014, the Liberal Democratic Party holds a minority of seats in the Imperial Senate.