Liberal Democrats (Enderron)

The Liberal Democrats (abbreviated as LD or LDP, colloquially known as the Lib Dems, initially founded as the Liberal Democratic Party) was a centrist liberal political party in Enderron that existed from 1985 to 2000. It was formed by the former classical liberal wing of the New Democratic Party after it split in 1985.

In the early 1980s, the New Democratic Party, which had been supplanted as the main third party in Enderronian politics by the Enderron National Party, fractured between its social liberal and classical liberal factions. On 4 July 1985, the party split, and the classical liberal faction became the Liberal Democrats, while the social liberal faction became the Progressive Party. The New Democratic Party's last leader, Adam Steggall, became the founding leader of the Liberal Democrats.

The Liberal Democrats were the more successful of the two successors to the NDP, but only won a single seat at the 1986 federal election, and Steggall failed to unseat the United Party in the seat of Campbell. The party found more success at the prefectural level, gaining a foothold in Longshan, New Colorado, Plymouth and Tojima. In Longshan and Tojima in particular, the party's brand of economic liberalism was more palatable to the larger Asian Enderronian populations in those prefectures, than the social conservatism of the United Party, and in the 1990s, the Conservative Party. As a result, the Liberal Democrats became the main party of the centre-right in those prefectures following the demise of the United Party in the early 1990s.

Steggall retired as leader in 1991, and was succeeded by James Maverick. Under the leadership of Maverick and his successor Phoebe Knowles, the Liberal Democrats shifted towards a more hardline economic liberal policy platform. As the party became more ideologically aligned with the Conservative Party, the two parties formed an electoral alliance for the 1998 federal election. Following months of discussion, the two parties merged in February 2000 to become the Liberal Party of Enderron.