People's Liberal Party (Gapla)

People's Liberal Party
President of Gapla	Chelsea Chen
Ideology	Majority: Modern liberalism Progressivism Welfare capitalism Mixed economy Factions: Social democracy
Political position	Center-left
European affiliation	Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (unofficial)
Council of Ministers	1 / 8

The People's Liberal Party (PLP) is a center-left, modern liberal, and progressive political party in the Federated States of Gapla.

The party is a result of a merger of the Progressive Movement and the People's New Socialist Party, which was largely formed due to the rise of far-left figures in Gapla requiring a unified center-left party to combat the democratic socialist Socialist Republic Party. The party advocates for modern liberalism, progressivism, and a welfare capitalist mixed economy, although some factions of the party support social democracy.

While in its early days, the People's Liberal Party was considered very left-wing, after the Gaplan "red wave" of many new far-left citizens, the party is now seen as a center-left and social liberal party due to its moderate views in comparison with the hard-left Socialist Republic Party.

History

Early days

The People's Liberal Party can be traced back to the early Liberal Union Party, founded by Wyatt Baek as a center-left party. However, the Liberal Union Party is widely seen as a center-right party today by Gaplan historians, at least on the global political spectrum, but the party was considered center-left due to its founding in a right-of-center region which had differing definitions on what constituted left-wing and right-wing politics.

After the Liberal Union Party dominated the politics of Gapla, new members started joining the party, such as Chelsea Chen and Mirabelle Wang. However, many of these new members were much further to the left than the existing members of the Liberal Union Party, which effectively created two factions within the Liberal Union Party: a center-right originalist faction and a center-left faction made up mostly of new members. After Gapla's transition into a constitutional monarchy, the two factions of the Liberal Union Party split, with some merging with most members of the Monarchist Party to create the Grand Conservative Party, and the rest of the Liberal Union Party forming the Progressive Movement. Through this "great split," the Liberal Union Party effectively ceased to exist before it was later formally dissolved when its founder and leader defected.

Although rare, there were some members of the Liberal Union Party who were further to the left than what was represented as the Progressive Movement. These members formed the minor party of the People's New Socialist Party, which effectively split the left and therefore led into an era where the right was dominant in elections.

The red wave

After the "red wave," a political incident in which several far-left members joined Gapla from abroad, the center-left Progressive Movement and left-wing People's New Socialist Party decided to unify into the center-left People's New Socialist Party to combat the far-left party that emerged. While few members were actually socialist, and most of the members were from the Progressive Movement, the name was chosen for electoral popularity. Eventually, the Socialist Republic Party split from the People's New Socialist Party as a far-left party after realizing that it was social democratic and not socialist. Following the domination of the socialist vote by the SRP, which grew into a major political power, the People's New Socialist Party rebranded itself to the People's Liberal Party and adopted a much more moderate platform, intending to attract centrist voters dissatisfied with the Free Rightist Party, which was widely seen as moving further to the right.

The Gaplan center-left grew tremendously during the Red Wave, although initially threatened by a surge of far-left voters. The red wave also caused the two major right-wing forces in Gapla, the Grand Conservative Party and the Free Libertarian Party, to merge into the Free Rightist Party to act as a more unified force. However, tensions between libertarians and conservatives within the Free Rightist Party has long lead to discussions of a possible re-split, although the idea has not yet materialized.

Modern era

After a poor performance by the People's Liberal Party in the Chen administration, the Free Rightist Party sought to re-seek government. It organized a famous rally in the Venado Middle School Symphonic Orchestra, which had reportedly resulted in the musicians supporting the FRP by large margins, including the concertmaster publicly announcing her support for the party. The Free Rightist Party won the subsequent 2022 Gaplan general election, sending the People's Liberal Party into the opposition.

In late 2022, Chelsea Chen made numerous statements in the Gaplan Discord server with many concluding that she has had a significant shift to the right of the political spectrum, opposing affirmative action, supporting Trump over Biden, as well as having more conservative social views on LGBT people in sports. Some micronationalists such as Nicolas Caiazzo alleged at the community that Gapla was founded in had a "far-right tilt," and that therefore the People's Liberal Party did not constitute a true left-of-center party. However, Chen has since retracted many of those statements, including defending her statement about Trump by saying that she only agreed with some of his policies and did not endorse him over Biden.

Many Gaplans did notice that Chen seemed to be explicitly supporting Trump over Biden, and as a result, several former members of the party defected to the Socialist Republic Party, which extended its reach as a mainstream left-wing power.