 After the split from the Centre Party, the ideology of the Centre Democrats was broadly similar to that of its originator, although the Centre Party became increasingly radical in the following years. The Centre Democrats did not publish a party or electoral manifesto before 1989, and until then its policies were known primarily through the small-scale distribution of pamphlets, which were almost exact copies of old Centre Party pamphlets. Like the Centre Party, the Centre Democrats claimed to be at the centre of the political spectrum, representing a "centre-democratic ideology". Nevertheless, the party focused mainly on the issue of immigration, and mainstream observers considered the party's ideology to be a populist form of nationalism.
