The Progress Party of Alaska (Russ: Prodvizheniya Partiya Alyaski), referred to simply as ПП or PP, is a center-left progressive liberal party that currently is the largest party within the Left Alliance, the leftist coalition of political parties in the Duma of Alaska. Critics and observers of the party consider it to be a social democratic party, placing it in the political center of its coalition (to the right of the Socialists but to the left of the Liberal Party). The Progress Party in 2010 absorbed the seats and membership of the Reform Party, which disbanded after decades of minimal electoral impact.
History[]
The Progress Party was founded in 1952 by Aleksey Pushkin, Dmitri Sebanaev, Nikolai Seshu and Mischa Vostov as a leftist alternative to the dominant Socialists and the yet un-aligned Liberals. The party gained impressive returns in the 1953 and 1957 general elections, becoming the main opposition party to the Center-Conservative-Industrial coalition during the Sighovaryin era before the Liberals emerged under Konstantin Sarugin as the left's main voice.
The Progress Party elevated then-leader Sebanaev to Interior Minister and then-Party Whip Aleksey Pushkin to Foreign Minister during the sixteen-month Sarugin government, and after the Conservative victories in 1966, Sebanaev retired to the backbenches to make room for co-founder Pushkin to assume the leadership. Progress became the Lead Opposition Party once again after 1969 and became the Lead Government Party in 1973 after winning two more seats than coalition sister-party LP, with Pushkin as Prime Minister. Pushkin's sudden death in December 1974 ended Progress' control of government and moved the Liberal Coalition to the left during the 1970s. The party leadership would be reshuffled in the early 1980s, shifting sharply to the left with Yuri Pushkin (the former Premier's son) and Gregoriy Bolov assuming leadership roles.
The Progress Party eventually wound up on the left of the Liberals following the 1987 elections and the ascension of Boris Molotov to the leadership, and became less significant during the 1990s. With the leftward shift of the Liberal coalition in the 2000s after the 2002 general election and the general trend of moderate Liberals defecting to the Moderate Party, the Progress Party has again emerged as the chief party of the Alaskan left, now leading the Left Alliance with its Party Leader Dmitri Boganov the coalition candidate for Premier in the 2014 general election.