Progressive Democratic Party

The Progressive Democratic Party (PDP) ' is Polaris' largest political party, and dominates both houses of the Legislative Congress of Polaris. The party is positioned to the left of the Conservative Action Party and to the right of the Socialist Party and Green Alliance. The PDP is considered to be a catch-all party within Polaris with centrist, progressive and social democratic factions.

The PDP began as a municipal political party that emerged in the prelude to the First Polarian Revolution. From 1942 onwards, the PDP became the dominant political force within Polarian municipal politics, having nearly 70 years of uninterrupted rule in Polaris.

With the establishment of the Federal Republic of Polaris in 2011, the Progressive Democratic Party has since reorganized into federal and state parties. The PDP at present maintains majorities in all but one state legislature, all governorships, and all members of the Executive Administrative Council. The party continues to maintain widespread support among all Polarians, though recent elections have indicated that this is beginning to dwindle in states with high blue-collar working populations such as Wilkes and Barrett.

The PDP maintains its national headquarters in the Polaris Capitol District, occupying 16 floors of the New Westshield Trade Tower. The party holds the National Democratic Conference, a party convention every two years, the last being held in Millsburg, HT in 2016. The current party president is Adam Gartford, who assumed office in 2011.

In 2017, the party executive voted to change the name of the party from the Polaris Democratic Party to the Progressive Democratic Party.

Polaris Free Democratic League(1938-1942)
The Polaris Democratic Party was initially founded by a group of Polarian aristocrats, led by Phillip Rombauer, a banking executive who had fled to South Pole City in 1918 following the Kingfish takeover of the city, only to return to Polaris under a period of détente within the Naughtzee regime. The group sought to remove the restrictions the Kingfish regime had placed on Polarian businesses, having been angered by the expropriation of several privately-owned factories for use by the military.

The first meeting of the Polaris Free Democratic League was called late at night in the basement of the Green Stone Bank on Phillips Avenue on January 9, 1938, a building that continues today as the antechamber to the Polaris Mercantile Exchange. Under the terms of the Green Stone Accord, a haphazard document containing the founding principles of the parties, and signatures of its founding members, the Polaris Free Democratic League sought the "forging of a society of equals," that which "any person may pursue industry and self-actualization without hindrance,".

The incumbent Kingfish regime saw the emerging Polaris Free Democratic League as a threat to the stability of the regime, having heard rumours of its founding through backchannels within the Polarian banking industry. As a result, several members by mid-1938, including the League's Secretary, Stilton Billard, were arrested and imprisoned for several years for the charge of "subversion of the state", though were spared the death penalty following an arrangement by the League's leadership with several corrupt law enforcement officials to cease all political activity for two years.

Liberal Revolution (1942-1945)
The Polaris Free Democratic League was instrumental in organizing the Liberal Revolution, that purged Polaris of the Kingfish regime, installing a progressive and democratic government. The PFDL, having ended its moratorium of two years, in 1941, swiftly undertook a concerted effort to topple the Kingfish regime, in what would be known as the Phillips Avenue Plan, involving heavy information dissemination in Polarian factories and businesses, the scattering of anonymous leaflets throughout the city denouncing the regime, and through pirate radio, providing dissenting information broadcasts to Polarian citizens, underlining the various sins of the conservative Kingfish regime.

These efforts would be met with violence from the Kingfish regime, who during a march of PFDL supporters on November 19, 1941, fatally shot 19 protestors at a barricade at what is now Joinville Plaza, and arresting hundreds of suspected PFDL supporters and sympathizers, many of whom were subject to horrendous conditions at the state's penitentiaries. These incidents helped to turn the tide of public support in favour of the PFDL, with, at one point in February 1942, there having been nearly 300,000 protestors gathered at Joinville Plaza to protest the Kingfish regime.

This would eventually entail in the storming of the Kingfish Building in Rogerston, a suburb of Polaris, and the ousting of Kingfish from power in Polaris, with the leader having fled to Freezeland for protection. It was at this moment that members of the PFDL would assume the role of a caretaker government, until the first free elections could be held.

As a municipal party (1945-2011)
Following the overthrow of the Khanzem government, Chester Wells, a senior civil servant was designated as a caretaker Mayor of Polaris, as the city began to organize its first free elections. During this time, the PDFL began a gradual transition from revolutionaries to establishment partisans. Under the supervision of three magistrates, the city of Polaris was divided into single-member districts, and multi-member ranges for the Executive Board.

The PDFL appointed Grant Redford, a shipping executive, as Chief Fundraiser for the PDFL. Soon enough, the party was able to amass a significant war chest. The party also began to design a primitive nomination process, where party nominees would be selected through a nomination conference in each district among party members. In January 1946, the first election was called, with a nominee secured for each district. In competition with the PDFL was the Conservative Action Alliance, an offshoot of Kingfish loyalists and disgraced partisans that sought to regain power. While the CAA, gained a sizeable

Ideology
According to the party's mission, the party commits to the vision of a "Polaris where all individuals may thrive and succeed in a just society", reflected in many of the left-leaning, progressive policies enacted by the party. The party adheres to a firm ideology of liberalism, emphasizes the values of justice, tolerance, equality, national unity, pluralism, and progress as core tenets of their beliefs and policy stances. Regardless, the party tends towards the adoption of a "big tent" approach to politics, incorporating both right-wing and left-wing concepts into their policies.

Fiscally, the party is committed to a progressive taxation system, though these efforts have been criticized for the enormous amount of loopholes in current Polarian tax regulations. As well, the party is demonstrably pro-business, as with the de facto legalization of white collar crime within Polarian territory, but continues to maintain strong rapports with unions and other significant labour groups. The party is not reluctant to engage in deficit spending, especially during times of economic difficulty for the country. However, the party remains stalwartly committed to free trade, indicated through the ratification of the Polaris-AU Free Trade Agreement in 2012, and significant government efforts on free trade wiht other nations.

Socially, the party is progressive, multiculturalism and social justice being crucial elements of the PDP's social priorities. The party was renowned for its decision to pursue the Marriage and Family Act, which legalized same-sex marriage in Polaris. The party has also enacted legislation creating Commissions on Species-Based and Racial Discrimination, and the Commission on the Advancement of Women within Polaris.

Current policies
According to the platform the party released in the last federal election in 2016, the party is committed to:


 * Reducing of taxes for the middle class from (24.5% to 21.5%), and increasing taxes on the wealthiest Polarians by 5%.
 * Investing $97 billion over five years in the revitalization of transportation and social infrastructure, in particular urban public transit and high-speed commuter rail.
 * Allocate $5.3 billion to the improvement and construction of new roads, bridges and tunnels.
 * Allocate $3.4 billion to modernize existing ports and cargo terminals throughout Polaris.
 * Distribute $21.7 billion to urban centers to fund public transit centers.
 * Increase PARTA annual budget by 33% by 2018.
 * Reducing the cost of education and increasing state subsidies and grants provided to students pursuing post-secondary education, and the establishment of more trades programs.
 * Providing more youth employment opportunities through a $675 million National Youth Employment and Training Fund.
 * Protecting equal marriage and investing in programs to study and reduce the effects of systemic discrimination.
 * Investing in a National Innovation Fund to promote Polarian advances in research and technology.
 * Introducing a trial universal basic income in designated low-income urban centers and rural regions.
 * Strengthening labour unions and protecting the right for workers to bargain and strike.
 * Introducing a National Day Care Strategy to open more affordable, high-quality day care spaces in underserved areas.
 * Revitalizing the National Entrepreneurship Fund to promote small businesses and start-ups in Polaris.
 * Improving public health care through a $11 billion investment in training new medical professionals, upgrading and building new equipment, as well as renovating and building new hospitals throughout Polaris.
 * Working to improve the Social Insurance System through a $290 million investment in improving operating technology, and transferring records from the United States.
 * Developing a National Sustainable Development Plan for the next fifty years, that will outline ways the government will reduce reliance on fossil fuels, uphold strong environmental regulations, and develop suitable clean alternatives to meet tomorrrow's energy needs.
 * Invest $1.2 billion in public education to improve schools, develop curriculum that encourages critical thinking and emphasizes computer coding.
 * Increase the number of economic immigrants accepted to Polaris from 230,000 annually to 450,000 by 2021, continue to improve support for asylum seekers and refugees in Polaris.

State parties
The Progressive Democratic Party maintains a broad network for state-affiliate parties, that regularly run candidates in state elections. As affiliates of the Polaris Democratic Party, state parties will often seek to emulate many of the federal party's policies on the state level. State parties will often assist federal parties in organizing campaign resources during elections, and vice-versa.

Many state parties emerged from various mergers between centre-left parties, particularly between the Polaris Democratic Party and now-defunct Progressive Labour Alliance (PLA), which was subsumed by the then-Polaris Democratic Party in 2011 at the beginning of Polarian autonomy from the United States.

As of 2017, all state parties are in government.


 * New Westshield Democratic Party [in government]
 * Hampton Democratic-Progressive Labour Party [in government]
 * Juno Islands Democratic Party [in government]
 * Barrett Democratic Party [in minority government]
 * Harnsey Progressive Democratic Party [in government]
 * Malherd Progressive Democratic Party [in government]
 * Wilkes Democratic-Labour Party [in government]
 * Enderby Democratic Party [in government]
 * Santa Cruz Democratic Party [in government]
 * Puerto Elanor United Labour-Democratic Alliance (Alianza Laborista Democrática Unida) (ULDA-ALDU) [in government]

Electoral performance
Bold denotes situations where the PDP has won the office, or has obtained a majority.'''