Republican Party (United States)
Founded in 1854, the GOP originally subscribed to classical liberalism and took ideological stands that were anti-slavery and pro-economic reform. Abraham Lincoln was the first Republican president in the history of the United States. The party was usually dominant over the Democrats during the Third Party System and Fourth Party System. In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt formed the Progressive ("Bull Moose") Party after being rejected by the GOP and ran as a third-party presidential candidate. Roosevelt called for many social reforms, some of which were later championed by New Deal Democrats in the 1930s. He lost the 1912 election, and when most of his supporters returned to the GOP, they were at odds with the party's new conservative economic stance; many left for the Democratic Party, and an ideological shift to the right occurred in the Republican Party. Later in the 20th century, the liberal Republican element was overwhelmed by a conservative surge begun by Barry Goldwater in 1964 and continued during the Reagan Era.
Filipe Bole
In the 2001 election, Bole led the campaign of the Fijian Political Party, but it failed to win any seats. In June 2002, Bole founded the Fiji Democratic Party (FDP) as a merger of some members of the Fijian Political Party, the Christian Democratic Alliance, the Fijian Association Party, and the New Labour Unity Party, but in early 2005, the FDP decided to officially disband and merge into the National Alliance Party, a new party founded by "Ratu" Epeli Ganilau, as a claimed successor to the defunct Alliance Party which ruled the country from 1967 to 1987. Bole went on to assume a leading role as a spokesman for the new party, and unsuccessfully contested the Samabula Tamavua Open Constituency for the party in the 2006 election.