From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Reformist Centre, or Reformist
centre, is a political term used in various countries
around the world to define various different kinds of political
thought, but always connected with the centre, moderation and social
reformism.
Use of
Reformist Centre by the Spanish People's Party
The Spanish People's
Party is the main political force to use the term Reformist
centre. Reformist Centre is used by the People's Party for defining
itself ideologically since the second half of the 1990s, with the
intention of including all the ideologies that it affirms to have
in its middle: right, conservatism, Christian democracy, and
liberalism.
According to the article 2 (Ideology), of the status of the
People's Party:
The People's Party defines itself as a political formation of
the reformist centre to the service of the general interests of
Spain, which has the person as the axis of its political action and
social progress as one of its objective. With clear European
vocation and Inspire in the values of liberty, democracy, tolerance
and Christian humanism of western tradition, defends the rights of
the human being and the rights and liberties that are inherent to
it; it secures democracy and the state of rights as basis of the
social living coexistence in liberty; it promotes, inside a market
economy, the territorial solidarity, the modernization and the
social cohesion as well as the equality of opportunities and the
lead role of society through the participation of the citizens in
the political life; it advocates for an international community
founded in peace and the universal respect of the human rights.[1]
This move on Aznar to use this term is frequently accused of
simple marketing of ideas[2], use of
an ambiguous term or of being just a right-wing/centre-right answer
to social democrat/social liberal Third
Way, trying to give a new moderate and centrist image to the
rightist PP, without actually moving it to the centre (Javier Arenas
described their claim to being centre as '(...) nor equidistance
between right and left, nor the intermediate zone between
liberalism and extreme socialism. It is an attitude of openness
contrary to sectarianism')[3],
instead of an actual re-ideologisation, adopting some Christian
democratic concepts (even inspiring its 1989 program on the EPP's program) without actually
adopting the ideology[4], not
losing votes from other ideologies in the party.
Similar steps taken by the party include the adoption by the
party, since 1996, of socialist II Republic
politician Manuel
Azaña's legacy[5][6].
Use
elsewhere
The term is also used elsewhere, not always in a way synonym to
the PP's:
- The Andorran Reformist
Coalition (of which the New Centre is a member), also
claimed to follow reformist centre politics[7] (it may
be seen as a clear influence of the People's Party as Andorra is a
neighbour and is culturally very connected to Spain (especially Catalonia);
- the term reformist centre (or more correctly reformist
centre-left) has been used to refers to some politics of New Zealand's Labour Party[8], to Blairite
New
Labour[9] and the
elements of the Turkish Democratic Left
Party (Turkish: Demokratik Sol Parti, DSP)
which founded the New Turkey Party[10].
Reformist centre-left may be considered synonymous with the Third
Way;
- in Indian politics the terms is sometimes used to refer to
centrist who support modernising and secular politics similar to
the Indian National Congress[11];
- The Italian Democracy and Socialism
political faction refers to their position in the political
spectrum as reformist centre[12];
- in Israel the term is used to name the Kadima Party, and many
previous parties who tried to position themselves between Labour and Likud[13];
- during South
Korea's 2007 Presidential
Election, the current Democratic
Party used the name Centrist Reformists Democratic
Party
- in Portugal during the Marcelo Caetano phase of the Estado Novo, some opposition
politicians in the Liberal Wing of the National Assembly, gathered
around José Pedro Pinto Leite, described themselves as reformist
centrists.
- In Venezuela, COPEI has
since 2007 refused the right-wing cathegorization and adopted the
self-description of «humanist and reformist centre»[14]
Retroactive
use
The term has been retroactively been used to refer to radicals and such centrist
elements of the reform movement [15].
References
- ^
Estatutos del XVI Congreso
(Statutes of the 16th Congress) (Spanish), page 5
- ^
Charlemagne, Jose Maria
Aznar, Spain’s blinkered prime minister, Sep 13th 2001
- ^
The politics of contemporary
Spain, Sebastián Balfour, p. 152
- ^
Christian democratic parties
in Europe since the end of the Cold War, Steven Van Hecke, Emmanuel
Gerard, p. 52
- ^
España e los
Hispanistas
- ^
Batiburrillo: Manuel Azaña,
enemigo número uno del liberalismo en la II República, Octubre 26,
2005
- ^
Coalición Reformista -
wikipédia, la enciclopédia libre
- ^
Peace, justice and
politics, The Sydney Morning Herald (3 de Novembre de
2003)
- ^
Tony Blair's 10 years at 10
Downing
- ^
Europe and the Impasse of
Centre-Left Politics in Turkey: Lesson from the Greek Experience,
Politics of Secularism in Turkey, p. 15 Mediterranean
Programme, jointly organised with the CES-METU
- ^
FE Editorial : State it
like it is, The Financial Express, Saturday, 18 April 18 03:10
in the morning
- ^
PD: ANGIUS, RICOSTRUIRE
CENTROSINISTRA RIFORMISTA, Democracy and Socialism Party
- ^
Israel's political map is
redrawn, Eric Silver, 25 - 11 - 2005, openDemocracy
- ^
Copei cumple 61 años con
logo, nombre y colores nuevos, Venezuela Real, 13 de Enero,
2007, 10:19
- ^
Social inequality and class
radicalism in France and Britain, Duncan Gallie, Part three
Elements of Historical Reconstruction, 12 War and the crisis of
legitimacy