The Alternative

**The Alternative** is a right-wing liberal political party in Mock Parliament. It is the oldest right-of-centre party in the simulation, being founded on April 8th, 2023 (launch date).

The party strongly supports a liberal market economy and is known for criticizing the other parties, from both majority and opposition blocs, for supporting extensively interventionist policies and State-directed economy. It currently sits to the opposition of the Robert Ramcin cabinet together with their coalition partners Progress Party.

## History

The party was originally founded on April 8th, 2023, on the same day the sim was launched. It was initially founded by @Gabriponte22, first and incumbent party leader, as an alternative to the Socialist Progressive Bloc and the European Federalist Party, to provide voters an option that kept distance from both socialism and State-run economies. The two original members, @Gabriponte22 and @MockNathanP, ran respectively for constituencies #6 and #5 for the launch elections.

Following the April 10th 2023 elections scandal, The Alternative leader @Gabriponte22 obtained a seat in the Provisional Parliament, along with other party leaders and a small quota of Independents. The party voted in favour of the first Elections Bill. In the following days, the party successfully registered a Scottish section, with @Gabriponte22 sharing both parties' leadership, and therefore was invited to take part into the Scottish Provisional Parliament on a dual mandate.

On May 6th, the party announced that they will stand for the elections that were held the following day. On the same day, they announced that they had formed a coalition with the Progress Party, supporting their leader @Enny\_Taylor as PM candidate; the polls that were released prior to the elections showed that The Alternative might've earned more than one seat, which would've ended up being redistributed as they only had one candidate at the time, on account of @MockNathanP's inactivity. The coalition got the 16.9% of the votes, being the 3rd most voted list and electing 5 MPs, including The Alternative leader and lone candidate @Gabriponte22.

In the days following the elections, several people stated interest in joining The Alternative and were let into the party, bringing the active membership count to a record high of 5. In the first term of Mock Parliament, the Progress-Alternative coalition sat as a minority party in the opposition, being the only Parliamentary group other than Civil Accord to oppose both the Eurofederalist and the socialist blocs.

On the day of the Syskagate scandal, The Alternative was one of the parties that opposed the voter registration bill. Afterwards, they criticized @soclibben for taking the simulation debate to a personal level and continuing even after both he and @jacobsyska left the simulation.

## Ideology

The Alternative is officially a right-liberal party, that encompasses members of various similar ideologies, ranging from classical liberalism to conservative liberalism to libertarianism. The party supports lower taxes and regulations and more privatizations in favour of a more laissez-faire market system.

## Leaders

–

present | -
 Ben
 Joris
(May 12, 2023 -Present)

## Electoral history

**Electoral history of The Alternative**
(Progress Party)
(into Progress-Alternative)