Challenge: Single party dominance in your country

Thande

Thande

Donor
...or any country you care to tackle of course.

Basically the idea here is, with a POD not before 1900, to come up with a scenario whereby in 2011 your country is a single party dominant state. Let's take a moment to define this--for the purposes of this challenge, a single party dominant state is one which is free and democratic, but nonetheless one party dominates the government almost continuously. You can have brief interludes of another party breaking through, but they never last more than a couple of years. I repeat: the country must have free elections, it cannot be a dictatorship.

OTL examples of this are the ANC in South Africa and the Liberal Democratic Party in Japan, though that may now have come to an end.

To kick off, here is a brief scenario where I try to do this for Britain.
 

Alternatehistoryguy47

TL-191, if Lincoln had never formed the Socialist party, means that the US would have developed into essentially this, with only the Democrats remaining as smaller parties find very little support.
 
Thande

Thande

Donor
kevvy2010 said:
TL-191, if Lincoln had never formed the Socialist party, means that the US would have developed into essentially this, with only the Democrats remaining as smaller parties find very little support.
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POD not before 1900. Of course at least on a legislative level the Democrats were dominant in the USA for long periods of the 20th century.
 

miguelrj

Well, we - that come from countries that actually had single parties at some point of the 20th century - don't count, right?
Your Challenge is way too easy for us. :)
 
Thande

Thande

Donor
miguelrj said:
Well, we - that come from countries that actually had single parties at some point of the 20th century - don't count, right?
Your Challenge is way too easy for us. :)
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Strictly speaking the challenge is for this situation to be the case in 2011, so you'd have to either prolong the OTL single party dominance of your country, or avert it and instead have it come about later by different means.
 

TNF

The Republicans splinter into conservative (yet anti-racist) and liberal (yet anti-labor) groupings, allowing the New Deal coalition to utterly dominate American politics from the 1930s to the present day, despite losing the South to the American Independent Party in the 1960s and left-wing, anti-war types also in the 1960s jumping ship. What's left is essentially the sort of 'vital center' liberalism that held the glue together on the Democrats, which would likely start falling apart in the 1990s as Southern Democrats finally died off or got over the whole 'Lincoln was a Republican' thing.
 

Lost the game

Banned
In the 1950s the leadership of the democratic party is dominated by liberals who are opposed to segregation, leading to a permanent split in the party. Meanwhile, The GOP also has a liberal streak, with Eisenhower (liberal if you define the center with, say, Bill Clinton, putting Ike slightly to the left f that), Nixon in 1960 and Rocky in 1968. Barry Goldwater and his ilk, disgusted by his party's liberalism, decamps for the Democrats. Meanwhile, the democrats, lead by Gene McCarthy and Bobby Kennedy, disgusted by their party's turn to the right, switch to the GOP. You end up with a white collar conservative party with the Democrats, a Blue collar caucasian, racist party with the Dixiecrats, and a GOP that is garunteed the blue collar AND the white collar liberal vote, while the sensless liberatianism of the AltDemocrats scares away moderates and the racism of the Dixiecrats does the same thing.
 

The Red

No Iraq War leads to a 2001 style landslide in 2005 and working Labour majority in 2009/10 and possibly 2015.
 

Revolutionary Avocado

In Israel, the 1973 Yom Kippur War isn't as much of a cock-up for the government, and they manage to fend off the attacking Arab armies much more easily. Because of that, Labour manages to keep it historic dominance in Israeli politics. At some point in the 80s, a neoliberal wave brings in a Likud-National Religious coalition takes power, but fails miserably by fighting a war in Lebanon (seen as unnecessary by Israelis). Labour comes back, sometimes bringing in coalition partners, especially after unpopular moves like a liberalization of the Israeli economy and a withdrawal from parts of the West Bank and Gaza, ceding them to the Palestinian government in East Palestine (established after the collapse of the Hashemite monarchy in Jordan post-1973) in exchange for a peace treaty similar to the one signed with Egypt.
 
Plumber

Plumber

Hmmm...
MacArthur isn't an idiot, Truman wins in '52, Reagan runs for Congress, No Ajax means the '58 recession is worse, Iranian Revolution, Japanese bubble pops during *Asian Financial Crisis...

(33-45) FDR
(45-57) Truman
(57-61) Knowland
(61-69) Reagan
(69-77) RFK
(77-81) B. Dole
(81-89) EMK
(89-97) Ann Richards
(97-01) E. Dole
(01-09) Rodham

 
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Emperor-of-New-Zealand

Easy. Since John Key and the National Party came to power, their only real opposition, Labour, gave up their best leader, Helen Clark (well, she resigned, but still) and put in Phil Goff. Goff is ineffective and leans to the right, while Labour is supposed to be a left wing part (it's centre-right now though). Have their policies mutate into some kind of conservative right wing party on par with National (but with more emphasis on helping the working class) and you may see a merger of the parties into one that "benefits everybody".
 

Bored Accountant

Banned
The Republicans nomiante Robert Taft instead of Eisenhower in 1952, as a result Stevenson narrowly wins. In addition due to butterflies the Sixties are less turbulent and thus there is no Conservative Revolution.
 

MaskedPickle

France tends to be essentially like this since 2002. Have Chirac not stab Chaban-Delmas in the back in 1974 by splitting the Gaullist vote, find a way to butterfly away Mitterrand or to have him resign after the right-wing landslide in 1986. And have Chirac Sarkozy stopping making bullshit. I'm pretty sure a 2002-like situation, with an extremist party coming to the runoff, would help this.
 

Joseph Solis in Australia

Had Manuel Roxas never splits from Sergio Osmeña of the Nacionalista Party, for sure they will be the undisputed dominant party in the Philippines and maybe butterfly away Ferdinand Marcos from politics because of single party dominance.

Had Gough Whitlam never emerges, for sure Liberal Party will dominate Australia and Labor Party after for a generation out of power might split into two.
 
Thande

Thande

Donor
The Red said:
No Iraq War leads to a 2001 style landslide in 2005 and working Labour majority in 2009/10 and possibly 2015.
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A combination of no Iraq War and Iain Duncan Smith remaining Tory leader could have interesting consequences: I think the Labour majority would be eaten away a bit in 2005 regardless but if the Lib Dems gain at the expense of the Tories so there's no credible single opposition party for years...Blair could still be PM now. :eek:
 

Joseph Solis in Australia

Thande said:
A combination of no Iraq War and Iain Duncan Smith remaining Tory leader could have interesting consequences: I think the Labour majority would be eaten away a bit in 2005 regardless but if the Lib Dems gain at the expense of the Tories so there's no credible single opposition party for years...Blair could still be PM now. :eek:
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I don't think Tony Blair is the PM right now had Iraq War never happens, Gordon Brown will be the PM by 2009 and maybe right now, he will be the one.
 
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