 the british virgin islands has a two-party system, which means that there are two dominant political parties, creating difficulty for anybody to achieve electoral success under the banner of any other party. in none of the previous four elections has a candidate who was not standing for any party other than one of the two main parties managed to win a seat (although one candidate has won running as an independent). prior to 1999 there were a number of multi-party elections with four or more parties contesting and three or more parties winning seats. ==active parties== {| class="wikitable" ! width="150"|party ! width="550"|comments |- |national democratic party | current ruling party. general election victories in 2003 and 2011 |- |virgin islands party | current main opposition party. general election victories in 1979, 1986, 1990, 1995, 1999 and 2007 |- |people's empowerment party | minority opposition party (1 elected member). never contested a general election. |} ==defunct parties== {| class="wikitable" ! width="150"|party ! width="550"|comments |- |united party | general election victories in 1967, 1975 and 1983. last candidate elected was andre penn in 1995. last candidate to stand was conrad maduro in a 2005 by-election. |- |vi democratic party | won the 1971 general election (together with willard wheatley (ind)). contested each general election from 1967 to 1979 except for 1975. formed main opposition party after 1967 general election. last won seats in 1971 (three candidates). last candidate to stand was q.w. osborne in 1979. |- |people's own party |never won a general election. only contested the 1967 general election, winning one seat. |- |independent people's movement |put forward two candidates in the [[british virgin islands general election, 1990|
British_Virgin_Islands-related_lists Lists_of_political_parties_by_country