The Catholic People's Party (, KVP) was a Catholic Christian democratic political party in the Netherlands. The party was founded in 1945 as a continuation of the Roman Catholic State Party, which was a continuation of the General League of Roman Catholic Caucuses. During its entire existence, the party was in government. In 1977, a federation of parties including the Catholic People's Party, the Anti-Revolutionary Party (ARP) and the Christian Historical Union (CHU) ran together under the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) banner. The three participating parties formally dissolved to form the CDA in 1980.
History
1945–1965
The KVP was founded on 22 December 1945. It was a continuation of the pre-war Roman Catholic State Party (RKSP). Unlike the RKSP, the KVP was open to people of all denominations, but mainly Catholics supported the party. The party adopted a more progressive course and a more modern image than its predecessor.
In the elections of 1946 the party won a third of the vote, and joined the newly founded social democratic Labour Party (PvdA) to form a government coalition. This Roman/Red coalition (Roman (Rooms) for the Roman Catholic KVP, Rood, Red for the social democratic PvdA) lasted until 1958. In the first two years the KVP's Louis Beel led the Cabinet. Beel was not the party's leader a post which was taken by Carl Romme, who led the KVP between 1946 and 1961, from the House of Representatives. After the 1948 election the PvdA became larger and supplied the prime minister Willem Drees. The PvdA and the KVP were joined by combinations of the protestant-Christian Anti-Revolutionary Party (ARP) and Christian Historical Union (CHU) and the liberal People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) to form oversized cabinets, which often held a comfortable two-thirds majority. The cabinets were oriented at rebuilding the Dutch society and economy after the ravages of the Second World War and grant independence to the Dutch colony Indonesia. That last point was caused a split within the KVP, in 1948 a small group of Catholics broke away to form the Catholic National Party (KNP): it was opposed to the decolonisation of Indonesia and to cooperation between the Catholics and social-democrats. Under pressure of the Catholic Church the two parties united again in 1955.
The KVP was at the height of its power from 1958 to 1965. It was the dominant force in all cabinets, and every prime minister during this time was a party member. In 1958 the Fourth cabinet of Drees fell and Louis Beel formed an interim-cabinet with KVP, ARP and CHU. After the 1959 elections the KVP formed a centre-right cabinet with ARP, CHU and VVD, led by KVP member Jan de Quay. It continued to strengthen the welfare state. After the 1963 elections this cabinet was succeeded by a new cabinet of KVP-CHU-ARP-VVD, which was led by the KVP's Victor Marijnen. This coalition oversaw an economic boom. Norbert Schmelzer became the party's new leader, again operating within the House of Representatives and not the cabinet. A cabinet crisis over the Netherlands Public Broadcasting however caused the cabinet to fall in 1965. The KVP and ARP formed a cabinet with the PvdA, led by the KVP's Jo Cals. This cabinet also fell in the Night of Schmelzer, in which Norbert Schmelzer forced a cabinet crisis over the cabinet's financial policy. This was the first fall of cabinet, which was directly broadcast on television. An interim government of KVP and ARP was formed, led by the ARP's Jelle Zijlstra.
1965–1980
The period 1965–1980 is period of decline, crisis and dissent for the KVP. The share of votes for the KVP began to decline after 1966, because of depillarisation and secularisation: There were fewer Catholics and Catholics no longer supported a Catholic party.