Belarusian Liberal Party of Freedom and Progress

Belarusian Liberal Party of Freedom and Progress (PFP)
Leader	Vladimir Novisiad
Founded	November 22, 2003
Split from	United Civil Party of Belarus
Headquarters	Minsk, Belarus
Youth wing	Civil Forum
Ideology	Liberalism
European affiliation	Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party (Observer)
International affiliation	None
Colours	Blue
Website
liberaly.org
Politics of Belarus Political parties Elections

Belarusian Liberal Party of Freedom and Progress (PFP) (Belarusian: Партыя свабоды і прагрэсу (ПСП), Russian: Партия свободы и прогресса (ПСП))

Liberal political party in Belarus. Since 2003 it keeps trying to get official registration.

Three constituent congresses took place on November 22, 2003, May 29, 2004, May 29, 2005. The decisions to create PFP, to approve its Charter [1], Program [2] and Manifesto [3] were taken by PFP founders at the congresses. The Ministry of Justice of Belarus refused to register a new political party under formal grounds in all three cases. When registered by the Ministry of Justice it is going to be the first liberal party in Belarus.

History of PFP

Historical background of PFP creation dates back to the middle of the 90s when small group of people organized an initiative “Civil Alliance”. In 1996 the initiative was transformed into the youth wing of the liberal-conservative “United Civil Party of Belarus” called “Civil Forum”.

In 2000 United Civil Party of Belarus decided not to participate in parliamentary elections. However, members of Civil Forum disagreed with such a decision and took part in the campaign. As a result, Civil Forum’s chairman Vladimir Novosiad became a MP. But at the same time links with the United Civil Party of Belarus were broken. Civil Forum started to elaborate its own strategy based on liberal values. As members of youth organization were getting older the necessity to create a liberal party on the basis of youth organization became more evident.

Thus, Belarusian Liberal Party of Freedom and Progress (PFP) is a result of evolutionary development of Liberal Youth Organization “Civil Forum”.

PFP status

The basis of PFP is the activists of the registered youth NGO “Civil forum”, and also the youth that have not participated in political parties earlier. The emphasis in the activities is made on creation of own political brands, active participation in local and parliamentary elections.

The greatest number of supporters (founders) PFP has in Homel, Mahilyow and Hrodna regions of Belarus.

The Party of Freedom and Progress will make efforts to fill a niche in a political spectrum of the country – it shall become the first liberal party in Belarus (United Civil Party of Belarus already existing in Belarus is based on conservative ideas and calls itself "liberal-conservative"). PFP intends to articulate and promote liberal ideas in Belarus, the country with dominating social-democratic and national-democratic ideas. European integration of Belarus is one of the basic theses the PFP political platform.

PFP activities and electoral campaigns

Electoral campaigns	Nomination signatures collected (approx.)	PFP and its youth wing elections nominees
Local elections 2003	1400	15
Parliament elections and national referendum 2004	15000	4
President elections 2006	14000	-
Local elections 2007	8800	20
Parliament elections 2008	15000	7

External links

• liberaly.org