Progressive Conservatives
| Progressive Conservative Party |
| Leader: Robert Ben Madison, Ián von Metáiriâ, Michael Pope |
| Founded: 1985 |
| Disbanded:2005 |
| Beliefs: Monarchism, derivativism, nationalism (factions), centrism (factions) |
| Color: |
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The Progressive Conservatives (PC) were the dominant party in Talossan politics for many years, dominating the Talossan political scene from its founding in 1985 and holding power without a break from 1993-2003.
Its members were nicknamed "Tories", reportedly in honour of American monarchists who resisted the separation from Britain in 1776.
History
The Progressive Conservative Party was founded by King Robert I in 1985, a merger of his Talossan Communist Party and Talossan National Fascist Party. Allegedly, the Canadian party of the same name had no bearing on the Talossan PC. Despite giving seats to multiple people, Madison was the only real party member, at least initially. Indeed, while the PC took part in all early administrations, it was members of other, smaller coalition parties (Metáiriâ, Corïu, Erni) who served as Prime Ministers; and Florence Yarney was widely understood to be an independent caretaker. The sole exception was Sandee Prachel, who however would not stick around long enough to be admitted as a permanent member and generally voted for Lorentzian Left parties in the following years.
Union with the Black Hand
In 1987, the party instead began to grow as it merged with Weston Erni's Black Hand; thus, it sat in the 7th Cosa as the United Party (UP), as junior partner in a coalition with the BFT which lasted from February to May 1988. Following disagreements in the coalition, the PC elected to quit and revert to its original name on May 11th, during its fourth annual congress; Art Verbotten was elected leader. With Verbotten and Erni both declining to serve, new citizen Tom Buffone was appointed as Prime Minister in the following term, and made leader on the following March 18th.
In these early years, the PC was generally understood to be the large centre of Talossan politics: to the right stood the TNP, and in following years other minor parties founded by newer citizens; to the left were the multitude of different parties founded by Danihel Lauriéir over the years.
Davron and Päts Vräts
In 1989, the party was hijacked by Dave Kuenn and Ron Rosalez, or "Davron". Both initially were members of Metáiriâ's TNP, but were kicked when trying to unilaterally amend its platform; amidst some controversy between Metáiriâ and the PC's Buffone, the latter let them join this party, allegedly to spite Metáiriâ himself. This meant that the PC now had members holding a disparate variety of political views, from Marxism to right-wing nationalism; the TNP's Wes Erni, who had quit the party earlier that year in protest to Robert's and Buffone's positions, dubbed the PC the "Pot-Pie Blob", a nickname that would be frequently used in the future. The party soon divided, with Davron in control of the rump PC, and Prime Minister Jack Schneider and Robert heading the splinter Päts Vräts, with Buffone on the sidelines. The latter would ultimately keep control in coalition with the TNP, but Schneider quit and dissolved the Cosa after a feud with Robert and a string of related losses in the Cosa. Buffone would get his job as Prime Minister back, though he immediately lost it to the Peculiar Way's election victory.
In June 1990, Päts Vräts changed its name back to Progressive Conservatives, meaning that two parties with the same name would contest the next elections; the party won, and a returning Erni was appointed Prime Minister, followed by Metáiriâ, whose political views moderated in response to general apathy and who had folded the TNP. The Davron wing would mostly fade away in 1992, Kuenn and Rosalez voting down Metáiriâ's government and teaming up with the opposition Un-Named Party's Buffone and Lorentz, only to disappear soon after.
Dominance
After being defeated by the Un-Named Party in 1992, the PC won the elections to the 16th Cosa and re-installed Metáiriâ as Seneschal; this started a long span of Progressive Conservative majority governments, which would last for almost ten years. In 1993, Madison gave up his leadership of the party in favour of a co-leadership with Metáiriâ and Erni. Metáiriâ retired and was replaced by Gary Schwichtenberg, who only narrowly won reelection in the face of a strong Liberal opposition led by Kuenn and Nik Kovac.
In the following years, John McGarry, Geoffrey Toumayan, Albrec'ht Mananséir, Dale Morris and Dan Wardlow also served as Prime Ministers for the PC. While McGarry didn't accomplish much, and was ultimately voted out by his own party, Toumayan's government brought Talossa on the Internet for the first time, which soon attracted thousands of potential citizens in a country of then-just 30. Mananséir was chosen as interim Prime Minister, in a deal with Morris and Toumayan to let the latter sit on the Uppermost Court to replace Senior Justice Wes Erni; Morris replaced Mananséir soon after, and notably chose as his own deputy Secretary of State Evan Gallagher, an outspoken opponent of the PC.
The party had championed the new 1997 Organic Law, written by a committee led by Matthias Muth over the course of nine months. The PC duly won the first elections under the new constitution, also the first under the Real Cosa, with 12 out of 20 seats and winning 5 out of 6 contested Senate elections. However, with Morris growing inactive and, according to Robert, "relying on Madison and Metáiriâ to run the country, in traditional PC fashion", he was replaced by Wardlow. Wardlow would enter on a feud with Robert over the issue of a peace treaty with Penguinea, and quit soon after, joined by his deputy Charles Sauls.
The Progressive Conservatives, however, continued their dominance of Talossan politics, with Tamorán dal Navâ taking over as Prime Minister, handily defeating Marcüs Pitz's PFPT, formerly Wardlow's splinter party and momentarily joined by members of other leftist parties. The party almost fell apart over "Mattgate", as prospective citizen Matt Dabrowski was rejected by the Ziu in a secret ballot vote, but it survived and won another term in power under dal Navâ, beating the ZPT and the new Liberal Party by a majority of a single seat; the party's Senate majority equally thinned to just 4-3. During this period, Talossa officially cut off all relations with micronations, through the Semi-Permeable Wall Act, championed by the ZPT as a moderate alternative to dal Navâ's own proposal.
Dal Navâ ultimately resigned in May 1999 to his deputy, Michael Pope, who would go on to serve for three years as the longest serving Prime Minister in Talossan history. Pope's tenure was long and successful, and notably coincided with some of Talossa's most prominent moments of notoriety, including a live call on NPR with Robert, an article on Wired and an exchange of emails with American conservative commentator Dinesh d'Souza. His government was opposed by the moderate ZPT, the more adversarial Liberal Party and the RCT; the feud between the Liberals and Robert would go on to largely dominate his tenure, until the Liberals's exodus of 2001.
Pope would also have to address the 2001 World Trade Center attack as Prime Minister; his speech was well-received by Talossans on all sides of the spectrum, and allegedly caused future PC Prime Minister Gödafrïeu Válcadác'h to cross the aisle from the RCT. After a fourth election victory for Pope in 2002, Válcadác'h was appointed Distain and took over in June after Pope's retirement, visiting Robert personally in Talossa proper and being sworn in on The Loom of Language for the first time in seven years.
Splintering and end
However, the Progressive Conservatives were ultimately rocked by a combination of factors: an US congressional election in late 2002, which exposed rifts between some of its members, and Robert I heavily criticising the PC's apathy. Therefore, the party's dominance came to an end in 2003, when Tamorán dal Navâ and Tomás Gariçéir left to create the nativist Grey Congress Party, and the nationalist wing of King Robert I and Wes Erni left to re-form the Black Hand, leaving the PC under the control of Ián von Metáiriâ, Michael Pope and Seneschal Gödafrïeu Válcadác'h.
All three parties were initially on good terms with one another, and fully expected to participate in coalition governments, but the "unexpected" success of the King's Black Hand party led to the breakdown of relations between the three parties and, ultimately, to the Halloween Crisis.
The party all but dissolved with the republican exodus of 2004, as numerous high-ranked members (including Válcadác'h, Pope and Furxheir) left the Kingdom.
Legacy
Pocket votes
Opposition parties frequently charged that the PC's long dominance stemmed, in whole or in part, from pocket votes, a point of view which many PC members themselves eventually came to share, especially after the pocket votes followed Robert I in his departure to the Black Hand party.
Patriotic Coalition
In 2014, a new party sharing the same initial, the Patriotic Coalition was founded by Marti-Pair Furxheir. During the election, Furxheir stepped down to be replaced by Ieremiac'h Ventrutx. The party folded with the dissolution of that Cosa; Ventrutx resumed being a mostly inactive conservative, loosely affiliated with the RUMP, while Furxheir continued on as Secretary of State and eventually joined the Free Democrats upon the end of his tenure.