Progressive Liberal Party Прогресивнолиберална партия | |
|---|---|
| Leader | |
| Founded | 1884 |
| Dissolved | 1920 |
| Split from | Liberal Party |
| Merged into | |
| Headquarters | Sofia,Bulgaria |
| Newspaper |
|
| Ideology | Russophilia |
TheProgressive Liberal Party (Bulgarian:Прогресивнолиберална партия,Progresivnoliberalna partiya, PLP) was a political party inBulgaria.
The party was established byDragan Tsankov as a splinter from theLiberal Party in 1884,[1] and was pro-Russian in its orientation.[2] It supported the1886 pro-Russian coup and its ministers were the only ones to accept being appointed to the short-lived Kliment II government. Following the counter-coup and the appointment of Stambolov as Prime Minister, the party was banned and Tsankov fled to Russia. It was restored after Tsankov's return, following Stambolov's fall from power in 1894.[3] In the1894 elections it won eight of the 167 seats, a total it maintained in the1899 elections. In the1901 elections the PLP emerged as the largest party, winning 40 of the 164 seats.[4] It remained the largest party after the1902 elections, winning 89 seats, but was reduced to six seats in the1903 elections.[4]
The1908 elections saw the party win just three seats. For the1911 Constitutional Assembly elections the PLP ran in alliance with thePeople's Party, with the joint list winning 342 of the 410 seats.[5] The alliance was continued for theparliamentary elections later in the year, with the two parties winning 190 of the 213 seats, of which the PLP took 91.[6] Tsankov died in 1911, and was replaced as party leader byStoyan Danev,[2] who served as prime minister for just over a month in the summer of 1913.
In theNovember 1913 elections the party was reduced to just a single seat, although it gained another in theelections the following year. In the1919 elections the PLP won eight seats, which it maintained in the1920 elections.[6]
Later in 1920 the party merged with thePeople's Party to form theUnited People's Progressive Party.[7]
