Progressive Party (RSA-SWM)

The Progressive Party (Afrikaans: Progressiewe Party) is a political party as well as the Official Opposition in the House of Assembly of the Parliament of South Africa. It has been the Official Opposition since the 1995 general election. The Progressive Party was formed in July 1994 as a result of a merger between the Democratic Party, the Federal Party and moderate members of the formerly-ruling National Party. The current Federal Executive Director is James Roberts MP. The party currently holds 56 seats in the House of Assembly, which is the house reserved for the white electorate.

The party's establishment was in reaction to what the various groups described as a coup d'etat by the Conservative Party, after that party unexpectedly and undemocratically came to power when most of the National Party government was arrested on charges ranging from treason to corruption. The Progressive Party maintains to this day that the Conservative Party, which has ruled South Africa since 1995, illegally averted the democratization of South Africa, especially with reference to its declaration of nullity of the Constitution of 1993 which paved the way for a multiracial, inclusive South Africa.

The Progressive Party has a modern liberal platform. It opposes the government program of Separate Development (known more commonly as "Apartheid") and believes in a democratic, unified, multiracial and multicultural South Africa. It thus opposes the legitimacy of the homelands (the various "independent" states which Parliament created by way of legislation for black ethnic groups) and campaigns for their reincorporation into "white" South Africa. Its domestic platform includes support for wide ranging civil liberties such as freedom of speech, association and worship and support for social welfare programs. It mostly favors a market-driven economy, however believes that "400 years of coercively-imposed white supremacy" has distorted any legitimate market outcomes and thus favors programs specifically designed to bring about economic equality between the racial groups.