The Liberal Party (in Dutch: ''Liberale Partij'', LP) was a

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

conservative liberal Conservative liberalism or right-liberalism is a variant of liberalism, combining liberal values and policies with conservative stances, or simply representing the right-wing of the liberal movement. M. Gallagher, M. Laver and P. Mair, ''Repre ...

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or p ...

. The LP played only a marginal role in Dutch politics.

Party history

The Liberal Party was founded in 1922 by 85-year-old former minister

Samuel van Houten Samuel van Houten (17 February 1837 – 14 October 1930) was a Dutch liberal politician and philosopher, who served as Minister of the Interior from 1894 to 1897. Early life Van Houten was born in Groningen into a wealthy Mennonite family. Hi ...

in reaction to the foundation of the

Liberal State Party The Liberal State Party, "the Freedom League" ( nl, Liberale Staatspartij "de Vrijheidsbond", LSP), was a conservative liberal political party in the Netherlands from 1921 to 1948. It is historically linked to the People's Party for Freedom and ...

which united all liberal parties. Van Houten disagreed with the political course of this new party especially where it came to economic policy and electoral law. Van Houten had started out as an extremely progressive liberal,"uiterst progressief" according t
parlement.com
/ref> who as an MP in the 1870s had initiated the first forms of social legislation and as a minister in the 1880s had reformed the electoral law. In the 1910s he had become more conservative, opposing encroaching social legislation and the new electoral system. In the 1922 elections the party won one seat. Van Houten was the party's top candidate; he had already announced that he would not take a seat in parliament, if the party would win too little seats. The party's one seat was taken by

Lizzy van Dorp Elisabeth Carolina "Lizzy" van Dorp (5 September 1872 – 6 September 1945) was a Dutch lawyer, economist, parliamentarian and feminist. Life Elisabeth Carolina van Dorp, often shortened to Lizzy, was the daughter of Adriana Elisabeth Verdam an ...

a classical liberal and feminist, who had been member of the Liberal State Party. After the elections of 1925 the Liberal Party merged with the State Party for People's Prosperity (''Staatspartij voor de Volkswelvaart'') into the Fatherland League (''Vaderlandsch Verbond'') in 1925, however van Dorp did not join the new party, since it gave up its free trade stance. She returned to the Liberal State Party.

Ideology and issues

The party platform was based on

free market In economics, a free market is an economic system in which the prices of goods and services are determined by supply and demand expressed by sellers and buyers. Such markets, as modeled, operate without the intervention of government or any ot ...

liberalism and opposition to the new electoral system in the

Pacification of 1917 The Pacification of 1917 was a political agreement between liberals and socialists on the left and some Christian parties on the right in the Netherlands, ending both the suffrage issue and the school struggle. The Christian parties involved wo ...

. The party wanted to limit government influence, levels of taxation and government spending, and prevent the introduction of a system of social welfare. The party advocated the return to the pre-Pacification electoral system, with limited voting rights and a

two-round system The two-round system (TRS), also known as runoff voting, second ballot, or ballotage, is a voting method used to elect a single candidate, where voters cast a single vote for their preferred candidate. It generally ensures a majoritarian resu ...

in single seat constituencies. Members of parliament should be elected as independents without a

party discipline Party discipline is a system of political norms, rules and subsequent respective consequences for deviance that are designed to ensure the relative cohesion of members of the respective party group. In political parties specifically (often refe ...

Leadership and support

This table shows the LP's results in elections to the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...

and Senate elections, as well as the party's political leadership: the fractievoorzitter, is the chair of the parliamentary party and the lijsttrekker is the party's top candidate in the general election, these posts are normally taken by the party's leader.

Electorate

The Liberal Party drew most of its support from liberal cities

the Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital o ...

and

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

, and from Groningen the home base of Van Houten.

References

Notes

# - The Liberal Party left the ''Fatherland League'' when this was resurrected as a reactionary party in May 1926. {{Dutch liberal political parties

Liberal Party The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left. __TOC__ Active liberal parties This is a li ...

Liberal parties in the Netherlands Netherlands 1922 Political parties established in 1922 Conservative liberal parties Political parties disestablished in 1925 1922 establishments in the Netherlands