The Progressive Liberal Party ( abbreviated PLP) is a populist and social liberal party in

the Bahamas The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to 88% of the a ...

. Philip Davis is the leader of the party.

History

The PLP was founded in 1953 by William Cartwright,

Cyril Stevenson Cyril St. John Stevenson (July 13, 1914 – November 6, 2006) was a Bahamian politician and newspaper publisher. Stevenson, Sir Henry Milton Taylor and William Cartwright, co-founded the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) in 1953, the first nationa ...

, and

Henry Milton Taylor Sir Henry Milton Taylor (4 November 1903 – 14 February 1994) was the fourth governor-general of the Bahamas, serving from February 28, 1991 to January 2, 1992. Biography Sir Henry, the adopted son of Joseph J. Taylor and Evelyn Taylor, w ...

. The PLP was the first national political party in the Bahamas. The party governed for 25 straight years from 1967 to 1992, as well as from 2002 to 2007 and 2012 to 2017. Leading the party to its first victory in 1967 was Lynden Pindling, the country's first Prime Minister. Perry Christie was Prime Minister of the Bahamas between 2 May 2002 and the 2007 general elections when the party was defeated by the rival Free National Movement (FNM) which won 23 seats. The FNM installed leader

Hubert Ingraham The Right Honourable Hubert Alexander Ingraham, PC (born 4 August 1947) is a Bahamian politician who was Prime Minister of the Bahamas from August 1992 to May 2002 and again from May 2007 to May 2012. He is a member of the Free National Move ...

as the Prime Minister. After defeat and one of its MPs leaving the party since, the PLP held 17 of the 41 seats in the

Bahamas National Assembly The Parliament of the Bahamas is the bicameral national parliament of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas. The parliament is formally made up of the sovereign (represented by the governor-general), an appointed Senate, and an elected House of Assem ...

. In the 2012 general election, the Progressive Liberals won a solid majority in a

landslide election A landslide victory is an election result in which the victorious candidate or party wins by an overwhelming margin. The term became popular in the 1800s to describe a victory in which the opposition is "buried", similar to the way in which a geol ...

victory, taking 29 of the 38 seats in parliament. Christie was sworn into office on 8 May 2012. Hubert Ingraham announced his retirement from politics following the defeat of his party. In September 2021, the PLP defeated the ruling FNM in a snap

election An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has operat ...

, as the economy struggled to recover from its deepest crash since at least 1971. Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) won 32 of the 39 seats in the House of Assembly. Free National Movement (FNM) took the remaining seats. On 17 September 2021, the chairman of the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) Philip Davis was sworn in as the new Prime Minister of Bahamas to succeed Hubert Minnis.

Electoral results

References

External links

* Political parties in the Bahamas Liberal parties in North America Social liberal parties Political parties established in 1953 1953 establishments in the Bahamas {{Bahamas-stub