Conservative Party (Delkora)
Conservative Party Konservative Parti | |
|---|---|
| Leader | Grethe Vilstrup |
| Founded | 1833 |
| Headquarters | Norenstal |
| Newspaper | Nationen |
| Youth wing | Blå Ungdom |
| Women's wing | Konservative Kvinder |
| Membership (2019) |  612,583 |
| Ideology | |
| Political position | Centre-right |
| Colours | Light blue (since 2002) Dark blue (until 2002) |
| Chamber of Representatives | 94 / 500
|
| Chamber of Nobles | 54 / 200
|
| First ministers | 2 / 7
|
| State parliaments | 284 / 1,150
|
| County councils | 710 / 2,317
|
| Municipal councils | 10,423 / 47,580
|
| Election symbol | |
| K | |
The Conservative Party (Delkoran: Konservative Parti) is a centre-right political party in Delkora. Founded in 1833, it is one of the oldest parties in Delkoran politics and has long been influential in politics at both the federal and state level. Ten out of the 27 chancellors in Delkoran history have been members of the Conservative Party.
History
Early years
The Conservative Party was established following the Delkoran Civil War by Almar Bundgaard, a noble from Banderhus who had commanded the jarl militias during the war. Its membership consisted mainly of nobles who had opposed the Royalists. Although they had opposed Vallgaar's reign and sided with the rebellion, they were staunch monarchists who strongly opposed the establishment of a republic and were generally against democratic reforms.
In the context of the first party system, the Conservatives and Liberals were the two major parties that vied for support in elections. During this period, Conservative governments generally sought to protect the power and influence of the nobility, opposed secularization, and supported efforts to devolve power to the Delkoran states.
The implementation of proportional representation in 1884 deprived the party of the possibility of governing alone, and led them to begin a tradition of coalitions with the Agrarians and Moderates. During the second party system, they occasionally collaborated with the Liberals when their Højre faction was ascendant, such as Olav Brøndum's Conservative–Liberal coalition cabinets.
The rise of National Labor pushed the Conservatives more towards laissez-faire economics, contributing to their coalitions with Højre Liberals, while the Progressive Party challenged their support of the nobility with their reformist agenda, prominently supported by the Jaerevik clique.
Shift to the right
During the 1930s, the Conservatives lost power at the federal level. Although the Liberals and National Labor were both undergoing internal struggles between conservative and radical factions, their shared opposition to the Conservatives served as the unifying element of a coalition.
The second party system began to disintegrate during Sofia Westergaard's tenure. She made great efforts to turn the Liberals into a social democratic party and fought Højre just as much as the opposition. The Conservatives were horrified by forceful actions like the Blockade of Banderhus, and shifted rightwards under Veidnar Albendor. The rivalry between Albendor and Westergaard became infamous as one of the most personally vicious between a government and opposition leader in Delkoran history. Albendor's tenure made the Conservatives a more staunchly right-wing party, dominated by national conservatism and economic liberalism, and open to reactionary ideas.
The Conservatives won the 1940 federal election, aided by the Liberal Party split of 1940. As Chancellor, Albendor governed autocratically, at the expense of his moderate Agrarian and Reform Party coalition partners. His tenure was driven by a hostility to Westergaard's accomplishments, particularly in economic policy: his government cut taxes and spending, implemented sweeping deregulation, and weakened competition law. The result was a major transfer of wealth to the upper classes, accompanied by increased inequality and poverty.
The 1953 banking crisis brought an economic depression, and the unpopularity of Albendor's bailout of Halmodryn Steel, Drommler Automotive, and Elderik-Sonderheim brought his retirement in 1956. With the opposition momentarily faltering and the Moderates unwilling to back a "radical" government, Hjalmar Madsen declared a national emergency in the face of violent protests and the Labor Underground insurgency. Madsen's assassination in 1959 added to fears of imminent civil war.
New Kingdom
The Conservatives suffered a massive defeat in the 1959 federal election. This was followed by further losses at the state and local level, and a two-decade period in the political wilderness.
Public anger at the 1950s depression and enthusiasm for the New Kingdom program contributed to a marginalisation of the right-wing. The Conservatives opposed the New Kingdom program, but their marginalisation at the ballot box meant that they were not taken seriously. Loss of power deprived the party of its unifying thread, and it erupted into battles between previously loosely united factions: national conservatives, classical liberals, social conservatives, right-wing populists, reactionaries. Several breakaway parties emerged: the Traditionalist League, National Revival, and Party of Ordinary Delkorans. The Moderates experienced a brief surge in the 1960s that fueled serious speculation they would displace the Conservatives on the right.
The reign of Charlotte III added to the party's existential crisis. Previously, the Conservatives had embraced the monarchy as a conservative institution, part of their defense of tradition. Charlotte's transformation of the monarchy into a more down-to-earth bicycle monarchy and her liberal sympathies prompted heated reactions from the formerly pro-monarchist Conservatives. Hardline Conservatives' attacks on Charlotte and other female political figures like Sofia Westergaard, Mette Elvensar, and venstjerne leaders outraged public opinion, and were skilfully exploited by National Labor to cast the party as repulsive misogynists.
More consequential for the party was the emergence of the New Conservative (Nye Konservative) faction. The New Conservatives were moderates, who accepted the New Kingdom program while claiming they could administer it better, and embraced social liberalism to counteract the party's "vicious" image. The New Conservatives' gained a stronghold in the Vassengård branch of the party, winning state elections from 1964 to 1980 under Gunter Frølund and governing from the centre, occasionally seeking support from the Liberals and National Labor. The party's internal conflict thus gained a regional dimension, with Vassengård's populist progressive conservatism battling Banderhus' rural social conservatism.
The exhaustion of the right-wing factional battles and ascendance of the New Conservatives heralded a revival for the party. With a campaign fronted by Frølund's spouse Bendte Frølund, the party finished second in the 1975 federal election, becoming the official opposition for the first time in 16 years.
Government and wilderness
The Conservatives won the 1983 federal election, and formed a government under Lars af Vellarand, in coalition with the Agrarians. Vellarand and his deputy Ulrik Andersen were members of the national conservative Heritage Faction, and resented the New Conservatives. They sought to build close relations with the Agrarian leadership as a bulwark against the New Conservatives, as the Agrarians' own centre-right shift and challenge from the geolibertarian Liberals had made them amenable to a socially conservative course.
Although Vellarand and Andersen campaigned on reversing the New Kingdom program, they were unable to fully dismantle it due to broad public support. However, they did seek to weaken it through neoliberal-oriented economic policies like tax and spending cuts, using the deficit to justify austerity, and devolution of powers to states as a way to weaken the federal government. The government also sought to shore up its right-wing credentials by adopting a zero tolerance policy towards drugs, pushing through media deregulation to weaken venstjerne, and attempting to withdraw Delkora from the Common Sphere, which was rejected in a referendum.
Vellarand's personal popularity allowed the government to win re-election in 1987, but its second term saw an accumulation of scandals such as the Geirbjørn Feldengaard kidnapping incident and the neoliberal conspiracy. Vellarand stepped down in 1991, and Andersen led the party through a difficult election campaign, marred by the growing fallout of the neoliberal conspiracy trials, the Lasermannen shooting spree, and the Siege of Gothendral. In a surprising result, Andersen retained a narrow plurality, due to opposition vote-splitting and the Moderates supporting them over a National Labor government dependent on Communist support.
Despite the near-loss, Andersen pushed ahead with his agenda of privatisation, deregulation, devolution, and law and order. It was stymied by his minority status and continued investigations arising from the neoliberal conspiracy. His inaction in the face of the early 1990s depression was fiercely criticised and dealt a death blow to the government.
Exasperated by the Heritage Faction clinging to power, the New Conservatives formed a splinter party, the Centre Democrats, in 1992. The Centre Democrats also came to include members of National Labor's right faction expelled by Emma Jørgensen, and their presence contributed to the Conservatives' wipeout in the 1992 state elections.
The government collapsed in 1994 after Andersen was charged with attempted electoral fraud and bribery during the previous federal election. The resulting federal election marked another landslide defeat for the Conservatives, this time worsened by the Centre Democrats siphoning off centre-right voters angered by Andersen's hardline governance and inaction faced with the 1990s depression.
The rest of the 1990s were consumed by the battle between the right-leaning Conservatives and the progressive conservative Centre Democrats for hegemony over the Delkoran centre-right. The great bitterness between the two parties and public revulsion at the neoliberal conspiracy aided another period of left-wing dominance, and the beginning of the fourth party system with the ascent of the Greens.
Contemporary
Continued poor results in elections made it clear that neither the Conservatives nor Centre Democrats could dislodge National Labor, and a movement emerged to reunite the two and end the fragmentation of the centre-right.
The humiliating 2002 federal election was a watershed: it produced a hung parliament with the Centre Democrats winning a plurality, but refusing to form a government that would need Conservative support for a majority. Instead, a Green–Communist–Pirate minority government was constituted by Kol Vossgaard, with National Labor providing confidence and supply.
The dominant right-wingers of the Conservatives were discredited by the result, and lost a leadership election to a rump New Conservative faction led by Harald Møller.
Møller made great efforts to reposition the Conservatives towards the centre and rebuild their image. He promoted New Conservatives into his shadow cabinet, unveiled a moderate policy platform, changed its logo and official colour, and vocally denounced the neoliberal conspiracy and accepted the New Kingdom program. In a significant victory, he persuaded the Centre Democrats to rejoin the party in 2003. There were even discussions of officially changing the party's name to "New Conservatives" to underscore their shift.
Still, internal tensions within the party continued to linger, particularly between the New Conservatives and the Liberty Conference. After the party's defeat in the 2014 federal election, Møller's foreign minister, Thorbjørn Gundersen, a leading figure within the Liberty Conference, launched a leadership challenge against him, prevailing in a close vote. As party leader, Gundersen sought to move the party further right with the support of the national conservative wing of the party, but was frequently stymied by the New Conservatives.
Following the 2018 federal election, which resulted in a disastrous defeat for the party, Gundersen lost a leadership challenge to Grethe Vilstrup, leader of the New Conservatives. Since taking over, she has again plotted a moderate course for the party.
Organization
Base of support
Ideology
Although the Conservative Party has been characterized by increasing factionalism since the 1960s, the majority tendencies within the party adhere to broadly liberal conservative and social liberal positions. The party is located on the centre-right of the Delkoran political spectrum. Its current platform promotes a regulated market economy, increased cooperativization, opposition to economic planning, and critical support for the New Kingdom. With the increasing influence of the New Conservatives, the party has adopted progressive stances on some social issues in recent years, including support for increased immigration and strengthened civil rights protections for minority groups.
Factions
- New Conservatives (Nye Konservative): A moderate faction that emerged in the 1960s and is notable for its support of the New Kingdom program. Currently the majority wing of the of the party. New Conservatives embrace a social market economy and progressive stances on social issues. They are known for their populism, which is seen as being in contrast with the party's traditional aristocratic image.
- Liberty Conference (Frihedskonference): A neoliberal faction strongly opposed to the New Kingdom and supportive of free trade, privatization, reducing government regulations, and lowering taxes. Along with the New Conservatives, one of the two major ideological groupings within the party.
- National Group (National Gruppe): A national conservative faction founded in 1995 as a successor to the Heritage Faction after the latter was banned as a criminal enterprise for its role in the neoliberal conspiracy. Despite being an increasingly marginal force within the party, it frequently sides with the Liberty Conference to oppose New Conservative initiatives.
List of leaders
- Almar Bundgaard (1833-1851)
- Ludvig Callesen (1851-1856)
- Lars Gustav af Løvenhelm (1856-1868)
- Otto Henrik af Vinterfelt (1868-1880)
- Thorvald Kjærsgaard (1880-1900)
- Olav Brøndum (1900-1926)
- Guðberg Hallgilsson (1926-1932)
- Veidnar Albendor (1932-1956)
- Hjalmar Madsen (1956-1959)
- Thalbius Sörbengaard (1959-1959)
- Archibald Bødker (1959-1975)
- Bendte Frølund (1975-1979)
- Lars af Vellarand (1979-1991)
- Ulrik Andersen (1991-1994)
- Mathilde Boesen (1994-2002)
- Harald Møller (2002-2014)
- Thorbjørn Gundersen (2014-2018)
- Grethe Vilstrup (2018-present)