Progressive Federal Party

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The Progressive Federal Party (PFP) (

The party was preceded by the Progressive Party as the liberal opposition to the National Party. While the main opposition United Party contained liberal factions, the PP had for many years been the only purely liberal party represented in parliament. A realignment began when liberal members of the UP left to found the Reform Party in 1975, which merged with the Progressives to form the Progressive Reform Party later the same year.^[2]

In 1977, another group of United Party members left the by then rapidly declining party to form the Committee for a United Opposition, which then joined the Progressive Reform Party to form the Progressive Federal Party.^[2]

History

South Africa's apartheid laws initially limited the party's membership to the country's whites, from which it drew support mainly from liberal English speakers. It opened up its membership to all races as soon as this became legal again, in 1984,^[3] but the party remained predominantly white and English. It won seats in cities such as Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, Johannesburg and Durban. It had very little support amongst Afrikaners, and the PFP was derided by right-wing whites, who claimed its initials stood for 'Packing for Perth', because of the many white liberal supporters of the 'Progs', who were emigrating to Australia.^[4]

The PFP would become the official opposition in the 1977 election, winning 17 seats. Colin Eglin, who had also led the earlier Progressive Party, was initially the leader of the PFP. But over the weekend of 3 September 1979, on the behest of

The PFP strengthened its opposition status in 1981 by increasing its representation to 27 seats.[4]

It was ousted as the official opposition by the far-right Conservative Party in the whites-only parliamentary elections held on 6 May 1987.^{[citation needed]}

This electoral blow led many of the PFP's leaders to question the value of participating in the whites-only parliament, and some of its MPs left to form the New Democratic Movement (NDM).^{[citation needed]}

In 1989, the PFP and NDM merged with another small white reformist party, the Independent Party (IP), to form the Democratic Party (DP).

Notable members

Leaders of the Progressive Federal Party:

See also

• Federalism
• Liberalism
• Contributions to liberal theory
• Liberalism worldwide
• List of liberal parties
• Liberal democracy
• Liberalism in South Africa

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Progressive Federal Party.