Political parties with misleading names

[2952-0-0]

I'm genuinely surprised no one has mentioned the largest party in the world, which has nuclear missiles but no website.

[politicus]

I'm genuinely surprised no one has mentioned the largest party in the world, which has nuclear missiles but no website.

I guess we are too used to it. All "Communist" parties in one-party states are ironically named today.

[politicus]

On that note: The Workers' Party of Korea is of course a blatantly absurd name.

[Hydera]

Justice and Development Party (AKP)

Not really for justice considering the numerous corruption scandals and mis-use of power.

And lets not forget the Social Democratic Party in the UK that was later absorbed by the libdems. Despite the name it was actually a bunch of centrist labour voters splitting off.

[freefair]

And lets not forget the Social Democratic Party in the UK Despite the name it was actually a bunch of centrist labour voters splitting off.

That's exactly how we'd define social democracy though- in "Welfare Capitalist" terms rather than "Gradual Socialist" terms

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Well none of them were American academics so it was clear that they were going for a 'the Labour Party as it used to be but without that lot' vibe. Of course it became very clear very quickly that that wasn't what was going on at all...

[Antonio the Sixth]

And lets not forget the Social Democratic Party in the UK Despite the name it was actually a bunch of centrist labour voters splitting off.

That's exactly how we'd define social democracy though- in "Welfare Capitalist" terms rather than "Gradual Socialist" terms

"Welfare Capitalism" can take three forms, Social Democracy being only one of them. In addition, the boundary between keeping capitalism with some added welfare mechanisms and gradually introducing elements of socialism is not as clear-cut as it's made out to be.

[Citizen Hats]

Someone mentioned the Institutional Revolutionary Party earlier, but that would seem to me to be a highly accurate for most of 20th Century Mexico, more accurate than the vast majority of party names. They were revolutionary in that they were the victors of the Revolution, and the were institutional in the sense that they were the dominant party of the state and were embedded solidly in the state machine.  It's fairly honest as party names go

[Zanas]

Of course the Democratic Party of Turkmenistan is the only party allowed in Turkmenistan, to my knowledge.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Eritrea's People's Front for Democracy and Justice.

They actually run a one party state with a North Korea like regime.

[Zinneke]

"Mouvement Réformateur" was a weird name in Belgium for a centre-right party, but I guess it had to do with the fact that the Socialist family were the party of government, usually with the Catholics.

Also the name change of the latter in Wallonia to "Centre Democrate Humaniste" was misleading for sure. Humanism and Catholicism aren't exactly perfectly compatible. But Merkel should probably take the same route given her party has nothing to do with its Christian origins.

[parochial boy]

The French name for the Swiss SVP is the "Union Democratique du Centre".

I don't think many people would argue that they are centrists, given their history of xenophobia and staunch economic conservatism.

[The Lord Marbury]

I'm surprised that the Moderate party in Sweden hasn't been mentioned yet. They're sort of middle-ground these days, but they were the furthest right you could get in Sweden back when they adopted the name.

I was surprised about that as well. Although maybe you could put forward the Centre Party as having the most misleading name these days what with having moved further to the right than the Moderates on economics and LAS. But perhaps you would disagree with that sentiment.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

"Mouvement Réformateur" was a weird name in Belgium for a centre-right party, but I guess it had to do with the fact that the Socialist family were the party of government, usually with the Catholics.

Also the name change of the latter in Wallonia to "Centre Democrate Humaniste" was misleading for sure. Humanism and Catholicism aren't exactly perfectly compatible. But Merkel should probably take the same route given her party has nothing to do with its Christian origins.

I'm going to have to disagree with both of these. There have been plenty of right-of-center 'reform' parties, and the issue with 'humanist' is that it's one of those concepts with multiple definitions, some of which in fact come from Catholic thought.

The Japanese LDP really is a good example because in addition to the problems with the 'liberal' part that CrabCake pointed out it's engaged in directly antidemocratic tactics (at least on a local level, occasionally on a national level too) to stay in power many, many times.

[politicus]

"Mouvement Réformateur" was a weird name in Belgium for a centre-right party, but I guess it had to do with the fact that the Socialist family were the party of government, usually with the Catholics.

I'm going to have to disagree with both of these. There have been plenty of right-of-center 'reform' parties

The phrase reform is actually monopolized by the right in many European countries where it generally means cutting the welfare state, go full New Public Management in the public sector and letting the free markets reign.

The Reform Party in Canada is a good non-European example of a right wing reform party, that did want to reform Canada quite a lot.

[Pragmatic Conservative]

BC Liberals, have no connection to the federal Liberals, and are largely made up of Conservatives. 

[Simfan34]

Obviously someone's already mentioned Venstre. Which probably wins extra marks for being an unambiguous contradiction.

[Bacon King]

The Coalition of the Radical Left is now a singular party that supports austerity


Also in Greece, the Christian Democratic Party of the Overthrow is a silly oxymoron of a name

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

From France:
Radical Party of the Left (PRG)
Republican, Radical and Radical-Socialist Party (Radical Party)
Both of them are centrist-leaning establishment parties (and the PR hasn't been close to any kind of radicalism for a century)

[Middle-aged Europe]

Germany tends to play it surprisingly straight, even though there's a recent tendency for generic-sounding party names which don't really mean anything (AfD, I'm looking at you).

National Democratic Party of Germany would be an obvious example though. Christian Social Union is at least debatable.

The most oddly named party is probably Citizens in Rage, a small right-wing populist party in the state of Bremen. I doubt (or at least I hope so) that their members/voters aren't constantly in rage either.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

http://nytlive.nytimes.com/womenintheworld/2015/12/30/brazil-gets-first-political-party-specifically-for-women-dominated-by-men/

[buritobr]

Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira (PSDB)

It is a conservative party, not a social democratic party

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira (PSDB)

It is a conservative party, not a social democratic party

Like in Portugal, kinda cute.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Has anybody heard of the "Worker' Party of Social Justice" of Czech Republic? Apparantly they aren't, as, err, Tumblr as you may think.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers%27_Party_(Czech_Republic)

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[DavidB.]

Has anybody heard of the "Worker' Party of Social Justice" of Czech Republic? Apparantly they aren't, as, err, Tumblr as you may think.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers%27_Party_(Czech_Republic)

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The women in this party can be considered feminazis?