Conservative Party (Belhavia)
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Conservative Party | |
|---|---|
| File:New Conservatives logo.png | |
| Leader | President Eli Goldman |
| Founder | Edward Kalian |
| Founded | January 16, 1955 |
| Preceded by | Federalist Party |
| Headquarters | Provisa |
| Student wing | College Conservatives Union |
| Youth wing | Young Conservatives |
| Ideology | Conservatism Neoliberalism Social conservatism Internal Factions: Neoconservatism Libertarianism Traditionalist conservatism Jewish right |
| Political position | Right |
| International affiliation | International Conservative Conference |
| Colors | Navy Blue White |
| Seats in the Imperial Senate | 35 / 70
|
| Website | |
| www.belhavianconservatives.com | |
The Conservative Party, also commonly called the Conservatives or the Tories (colloquially), is one of two de facto major contemporary political parties in Belhavia opposed by the Liberal Democratic Party on the left and the third-party Libertarian Party on the far right. Founded by the leaders and political activists of the old Federalist Party (1858 - 1955), its founding is credited by political historians as the start of the Fourth Party System in Belhavia and became the major party platform for those on the political right to organize and contest elections.
After initial pitfalls and struggles to craft a new political consensus in the period from the late 1950s until the late 1970s, it dominated politics nationally and in many provinces for all but 8 years since 1981 in the emergence of the Neoliberal Revolution. Throughout its electoral dominance, it has often partnered with the Libertarian Party in the 1980s, 1990s, and at selected times in the mid-2000s.
There have been 6 Conservative presidents, the first being Edward Kalian, serving from 1961 to 1969, and the most recent being Eli Goldman, serving from 2009 to the present. Three of them were one-term presidents, who were either defeated for re-election or retired because of scandal and a strong primary challenge.
The party's platform is based upon Belhavian conservatism, particularly neoconservatism, in direct contrast to the Liberal Democratic Party, whose platform endorse a more left-wing set of public policies.
In the 112th Senate, elected in 2014, the Conservative Party holds a majority of seats in the Imperial Senate.
Platform and Philosophy
The Tories represent the Belhavian big tent political right. Its members hail from the center-right to the far right-wing. Its mainstream is right-wing, with robust but smaller centrist and hard right wings. Besides encompassing most of the right-of-center movements, institutions, and political actors in the nation, it is also home to philosophical tensions between neoconservatives and libertarians, further complicated by the fact some Belhavian libertarians prefer an ideologically-pure political vehicle in the form of the separate Libertarian Party.
The early Conservative Party inherited its national conservatism ideology from its immediately predecessors, the Federalists (most of whom made up the early new Tories), which had sway from its founding in 1955 until the mid-1970s. In reaction to the tumultuous Watermelon era of liberalism, this "Old Right" ideology was challenged and supplanted by the emergent New Right, which has dominated Tory politics ever since the late 1970s and early 1980s due to the Settas Revolution.
The Conservative Party stands for the Jewish, imperial, monarchical, and sociocultural conservative character of the nation. It is built on the three pillars of conservatism: fiscal, social, and national security/defense policy.
History
The 1954 Election and the Collapse of the Federalist Party
Early Post-Galarian Politics
The Federalist Party was tainted by its early association with Zachary Galarian during the Galarian Regime. With his fall in mid-1945 in the liberal Stein Coup, many leading Federalist politicians were excluded from the post-Galarian leadership because they were denounced as either collaborators (by holding posts in the Galarian-era autocratic government) or suspected of being sympathizers (by not overtly denouncing or resisting Galarian's rule).
The liberal coup d'état deposing Galarian was led by Abraham Stein, an Imperial Army major-general with secret Liberal Democrat leanings. A provisional 'liberation' government was established, staffed by most Lib Dem politicians freed from jail and exiles who returned after the coup. The provisional government was headed by Matthew Rabin, whose rule was confirmed by a popular referendum in July 1945. It was decided that Rabin would serve until the next "regular" scheduled election, which would be in 1948 (Galarian having suspended elections after his coup two months before the 1940 presidential election was scheduled to be held).
Federalists, such as Edward Kalian and Michael Foxman, who remained untainted by association with Galarian were still pilloried by the newly ascendant political left. Foxman (exiled by Galarian in 1942) contested the 1948 presidential election as the Federalist Party nominee (opposing Rabin as the now-Lib Dem nominee), but he was crushed, 60% - 36%. The 1948 elections also saw the transition from the Provisional Assembly back to the unicameral Imperial Senate as the formal legislative body (the Senate was reduced to the so-called "Rump Senate" under Galarian and was dissolved under the Provisional Government (1945 - 1949)).
Approaching Collapse
With their weak results in the presidential election but decent pull in the Senate, the Federalists attempted to halt the increasingly left-wing policies promoted by the Rabin Administration and the Senate Lib Dem majority. However, the Lib Dems' 25-year position in the political minority emboldened them to act quickly to enact a left-oriented agenda. Without much success in the Senate, and with massive public disapproval of the conservative party, the Federalists floundered.
In 1950 midterms, the Federalists gained a workable coalition with the far right National Patriotic Union Party in a voter backlash against Rabin's policies in a six-year political itch, commanding a 36-31 majority.
In the 1952 elections, Michael Foxman ran again as the Federalist nominee, improving on his 1948 numbers but still being crushed by Rabin's successor, Lib Dem Yavin Leibniz, 57% - 42%. The Federalist caucus in the Senate fell from 32 seats to 25 seats in a massive voter backlash against the perceived extremism and hard right-wing policies of the Fed-NPU coalition Senate.
With a bevy of liberal policies pushed through by Leibniz, the Federalists aimed to recover in the 1954 midterms. However, the Goldstein Scandal in mid-1954 thoroughly discredited the party in the public's eye, with strong Senate candidates uniformly being defeated in the midterm. Their party caucus dropped from 25 to 22, a record low.
Edward Kalian, then-Governor of Arkania province, saw the Federalist name and brand as too tainted to continue to be a competitive political platform. Between November 1954 and January 1955, he barnstormed Federalist circles across Belhavia, working with what would become the so-called founding fathers of the Conservative Party to devise and create a new rightist political party. On January 16th, 1955, in the city of Dakos, he and the new Tory elite proclaimed the Conservative Party as the successor to the Federalists.
Founding & Early Years
Disavowing the tainted brand of the Federalists, the newfound Conservatives quickly absorbed the old Federalist political organization, officeholders, and activist base.
1950s: Starts and Stops
The 1960s and 1970s
The Settas-Katz Era (1981 - 1993)
Mid 1990s and Early 2000s: In the Opposition
Since 2005
Libertarian Influx Since 2008
Organization and Hierarchy
Election Results and Current Representation
International Affiliations and Criticism
The Conservative Party is affiliated internationally with the International Conservative Conference, based in Dakos, Belhavia, and led by George Demos.
- Rodarion
- Factions of the National Catholic Party, the largely dominant party for most of modern Rodarian political history, have criticized the 'the Tories' for being responsible for the excesses of the Neoliberal Revolution in geopolitics since the 1980s, as well as for being too hawkish and suspect of Rodarion's intentions in world affairs and broad support for the CDI, which many in the Rodarian political class view as being purposefully antagonistic towards Rodarion since the end of the Cold War.
- However, many factions in the NCP take a more pragmatic view, considering the Tories have governed Belhavia for 28 of the last 36 years. In fact, among moderate cliques, the Conservative Party's social conservatism, reactionary-oriented traditionalism, and upholding of state-sponsored religio-social norms are reassuring and a point of commonality and kinship between both parties' politics.
- Arthurista
- Feelings on the governing right-wing Belhavian political party among Arthuristan elites are positive, but complicated. Arthurista, which has been governed more often than not by the Labour Party, appreciates the free-market focus that Belhavia under the Tories invokes in international affairs, and notes that Belhavia's Tories largely have supported the Arthuristan-led effort for rules-based order at the international level, mostly unfailingly. The Arthuristan political class has also relied on mainly Tory-led governments providing Belhavian military forces to CDI, World Council, and other geopolitical efforts to support Arthuristan policy objectives.
- However, many, especially on both the center-left and -right, view Belhavian neoconservatism, including its state-sponsored social conservatism often decried as 'papered-over theocracy', support for racialist regimes in South Ashizwe, reluctance to support international bodies with funds outside of finance-related organizations, and defense of its empire as problematic and illiberal, and fault the mostly-Tory governments that have upheld these policies.
- Austrasia
- Among the grandees of the National Liberal Party the Tories are generally seen as an admirable but somewhat misguided party. Their record of staunch defense of Belhavia's national interests abroad and national security & national culture at home while enjoying extended electoral success in free and fair elections is considered worthy of both respect and study. Many within the NLP feel however that the Tories are willfully blind to the less desirable effects of neoliberal revolution; particularly the de-industrialization of advanced economies which the NLP sees as having critically weakened countries like Belhavia and Arthurista while countries like Rodarion rise on their coattails.