Liberal Party (Arkiasis)

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Liberal Party
LeaderCharles Hansen
Founded18 September, 1893 (as Liberal Republican Party)
Headquarters961 Superior St, 01BEF395 Leighton
Student wingLiberal Students
Youth wingYoung Liberals
Membership (2014)Decrease 191,026
IdeologyLiberalism
Third Way
Internal Factions
 • Social liberalism
 • Classical liberalism
Political positionCentre
International affiliationLiberal International
Union of Esquarian Liberals and Democrats
Esquarian ParliamentProgressives
Colours  Orange
House of Representatives
65 / 650
Senate
38 / 200
Provincial Councils
108 / 1,828
Esquarian Parliament
1 / 42
Election symbol
Lib

The Liberal Party is a centrist Liberal political party in Arkiasis. It was founded on 18 September, 1893 as the "Liberal Republican Party" as a party advocating Liberalism and Republicanism during the Arkiasis Civil War. Later, in 1931 the party dropped "Republican" from its title and became just the "Liberal Party".

Current Platform

The Liberal Party supports the pursuit of greater egalitarianism in society through action to increase the distribution of skills, capacities, and productive endowments, while rejecting income redistribution as the means to achieve this. It emphasizes commitment to: balanced budgets, providing equal opportunity combined with an emphasis on personal responsibility, decentralization of government power, encouragement of public-private partnerships, improving labour supply, investment in human development, protection of social capital, and protection of the environment.

Political Impact and History

The Liberal Party has had a profound influence in Arkiasian history and is credited with shaping Arkiasis society for the first quarter of the 20th century and has commonly been refereed to one of the two "naturally" governing parties of Arkiasis along with the Labour Party.

The party has underwent several major changes to policy throughout its history. For the first quarter of the 20th century, the Party was considered Classical Liberal and supported limited government. Following the Great Depression, the party underwent a massive shift and began to support the Social Democratic reforms and turned away from supporting a lassiez-faire economy in favour of the social market economy.

The 1982 Federal Election saw a major landslide victory for the Liberal Party who subsequently ushered in a series of neoliberal reforms which saw large scale privatization, economic austerity and a reduction of taxes. However, the reforms proved to be massively unpopular and the party gradually lost support throughout the 80's and 90's. By 1998 the Liberals lost 18% of its support.

The Liberal Party again changed its policy in the late 2000's towards a third way approach and agreed to join into a coalition government with the Labour Party following the 2010 election. This move however proved to be massively unpopular with the right-leaning faction of the party whom accused the party of moving too far to the left which resulted in the party achieving its worst electoral performance in history in the 2014 election. Following the expulsion of the National Front from the governing coalition in 2015, the Liberals agreed to provide confidence and supply for the ruling government. The Liberals have been accused by others as being opportunists who are becoming exceedingly desperate for any relevance as support drops for the party.

House of Representatives

Election Seats +/– Government
2014
65 / 650
Decrease36 crossbench
2010
101 / 650
Increase2 in government
2006
99 / 615
Increase8 in opposition
2002
91 / 615
Decrease13 in opposition
1998
104 / 580
Decrease24 in opposition
1994
128 / 580
Decrease31 in opposition
1990
159 / 580
Decrease12 in government
1986
171 / 545
Decrease25 in government
1982
196 / 545
Increase27 in government
1978
159 / 510
Increase13 in government
1974
146 / 510
Increase14 in opposition
1970
132 / 510
Increase132 in opposition
1929
137 / 556
Decrease14 in government
1926
151 / 546
Increase19 in government
1923
132 / 537
Increase38 in government
1920
94 / 518
Increase33 in government
1917
61 / 511
Decrease25 in opposition
1911
86 / 455
Decrease5 in opposition
1908
91 / 449
Decrease30 in opposition
1905
121 / 445
Decrease14 in government
1902
135 / 442
Decrease10 in government
1898
145 / 440
Increase9 in government
1895
136 / 432
Increase136 in government