On 7 May 2011 ( polling day ), the SDP failed to win in Sembawang GRC but managed to increase its vote share in that constituency by 13 percentage points to 36. 1 %.

The Lipponen cabinets set the stability record, and were unusual in the respect that both moderate ( SDP ) and radical left wing ( Left Alliance ) parties sat in the government with the major right-wing party ( National Coalition ).

The SDP won the support of large sections of the media, and for most of 1981 and early 1982 its opinion poll ratings suggested that it could at least overtake Labour and possibly win a general election, as the Tories were proving unpopular because of the economic policies of Margaret Thatcher, which had seen unemployment reach a postwar high.

The Liberal Democrats were formed in 1988 by a merger of the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party ( SDP ), a Labour breakaway formed in 1981.

Many of the younger CDS members were founding members of the SDP in 1981.

Both the SDP and the Liberal party were committed to proportional representation, under which system they would have elected more MPs to the House of Commons.

In the 1987 general election, the share of the vote for each party fell slightly ; the Liberals won 17 seats ( the same as in 1983 ), while the SDP won five ( one fewer than four years previously ), while Labour were firmly established as Britain's second political party with a much stronger showing than in 1983, although the Conservatives still achieved a third successive election win with Mrs Thatcher still at the helm.

Many of the opinion polls in late 1981 and early 1982 had shown the SDP with a comfortable lead over the Tories, who were proving unpopular largely due to high unemployment and the early 1980s recession and ahead of the Labour Party whose democratic-socialist policies were driving away moderate voters.

Here Owen and the SDP favoured replacing of Polaris with Trident as a matter of some importance, where most Liberals were either indifferent to the issue or committed disarmers.

Unlike the SLP, the Social Democratic Party ( SDP ) meticulously planned their breakaway from the Labour Party, and were much more successful.

Later that year the SDP managed early success when two members of the party were elected to the Massachusetts General Court.

The botched sales tax increase proposal was partially blamed for the DPJ's disappointing results in the July House of Councillors election, where the DPJ lost its majority and were forced to work with smaller, unaffiliated parties ( such as Your Party, the JCP, and the SDP ) in order to secure passage of bills in the House of Councillors.

In the parliamentary elections of 16 March 2003, there were two dominating parties: the Center Party ( KESK ) got 55 seats, and the Social Democratic Party ( SDP ) got 53 seats, in the 200-seat Eduskunta.

Three – Bayswater, Maida Vale and Millbank, had been narrowly won by Labour, a further three, St. James's, Victoria and Cavendish had been narrowly lost by them, in West End ward an Independent had split the two seats with the Conservatives while in Hamilton Terrace the Conservatives were threatened by the SDP.

Following the end of the war of independence in 1995, Croatian voters were becoming more concerned with social issues, and in such circumstances SDP gradually began to consolidate support at the expense of other opposition parties, most notably the social liberals, HSLS.

At the same time, five deputy speakers were elected: Josip Leko ( SDP ), Nenad Stazić, ( SDP ) Milorad Batinić ( SDP ), Jadranka Kosor ( HDZ ) and Vladimir Šeks ( HDZ ).

As opposed to the Socialist Party of Canada, the SDP allowed minority language groups ample room for self-determination, which led to a perception that the ethnic groups were more dominant than the overarching SDP.

The School Development Project ( SDP ) was formally launched on 26 January 2003, and works were officially started on 25 May 2003 with the demolition of the old music room block.

Due to the recession causing the marginalisation of Green issues, Roy Jenkins leaving the Labour Party to form the Social Democratic Party ( SDP ), and the inability of the Party to absorb the rapid increase in membership, the early 1980s were extremely tough for the Ecology Party.

After the formation of the SDP, there were noises being made that the UK needed a “ green ” party.

This prefigured the period 1983 – 1987 when Owen and Steel were Leaders of the SDP / Liberal Alliance and tension grew over whether their deal was a prelude to a merger of the parties or merely a temporary electoral pact.

The PAP's Sim Ann had filed in her occupation as a former civil servant and this was disputed by the SDP team given the short time span between Ms Sim Ann's resignation from the civil service and nomination day.

During 1988, the Liberals formally merged with the SDP to form the Liberal Democrats, though a small splinter Liberal Party was formed in 1989 by former members opposed to the merger.

Over two-thirds of the members, and all the serving MPs, of the Liberal Party joined this party, led first jointly by Steel and the SDP leader Robert Maclennan, and later by Paddy Ashdown ( 1988 – 99 ), Charles Kennedy ( 1999 – 2006 ), Sir Menzies Campbell ( 2006 – 07 ) and Nick Clegg ( incumbent ).

After a ballot of members and the passing of a motion at the 1987 Portsmouth conference, the party merged with the Liberal Party in 1988 to form the Liberal Democrats, although a minority left to form a continuing SDP led by David Owen.

Franjo Tuđman's Croatian Democratic Union ( HDZ ) won by a relatively slim margin against Ivica Račan's reformed communist Party of Democratic Change ( SDP ).

He continued to serve as SDP Member of Parliament for Glasgow Hillhead until his defeat at the 1987 general election by the Labour candidate George Galloway.

He was well regarded by other Labour statesmen including Tony Benn, but came under heavy criticism from others including Denis Healey, who condemned the SDP split as a " disaster " for the Labour Party which prolonged their time in opposition and allowed the Tories to have an unbroken run of nearly 20 years in government.

He secured more votes than the candidate of the Continuing Social Democratic Party ( SDP ), led by former Foreign Secretary David Owen.

In August 1958, Karl-August Fagerholm's third cabinet, a coalition government led by the Social Democratic Party ( SDP ) and including Kekkonen's party Agrarian League, was formed.

Kekkonen had warned against this, but was ignored by SDP.

That year, he was supported by five political parties: the Centre Party, the Social Democrats, the Social Democratic Union of Workers and Smallholders ( a short-lived SDP faction ), the Finnish People's Democratic League ( a communist front ), and the Swedish People's Party.

The city council and city board have long been dominated by the Social Democratic Party ( SDP ) and the National Coalition Party ( Kokoomus / Samlingspartiet ), with approximately equal representation.

Splintered by factionalism over the economy and Iceland's role in the European Union ( EU ), the SDP also suffered from being the only party to support Iceland's EU membership application.

* The designation of the party leader was made by the party's congress in the eighteen remaining parties: Austria ( SPÖ ), Bulgaria ( БСП ), Czech Republic ( ČSSD ), Estonia ( SDE ), Finland ( SDP ), Germany ( SPD ), Hungary ( MSZP ), Latvia ( LSDSP ), Lithuania ( SDPL ), Luxembourg ( LSAP ), Malta ( LP ), Poland ( SLD, UP ), Rumania ( PSD ), Slovakia ( SMER-SD ), Slovenia ( SD ), Spain ( PSOE ), Sweden ( SAP ), United-Kingdom / Northern Ireland ( SDLP )

The SDP – Liberal Alliance was a centrist electoral pact formed by the Social Democratic Party ( SDP ) and the Liberal Party in the United Kingdom which was in existence from 1981 to 1988, when the bulk of the two parties merged to form the Social and Liberal Democrats, later referred to as simply the Liberal Democrats.

Following the establishment of the SDP by the ' Gang of Four ' ( Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Bill Rodgers, Shirley Williams ), who had left the Labour Party in March 1981, the new party entered into an informal alliance with the existing centre party, the Liberals, led by David Steel.

The formation of the SDP and the subsequent alliance came at a time when the British economy was in a deep recession and Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government was proving deeply unpopular as unemployment had risen from just over 1, 500, 000 since they came to power in May 1979 to 3, 000, 000 and beyond by 1982, mainly due to the closure of many factories as part of the battle against inflation.

In 1982, uneasy about the Alliance, Owen challenged Jenkins for the leadership of the SDP, but was defeated by 26, 256 votes to 20, 864.

In 1987 immediately after the election, the Liberal leader David Steel proposed a full merger of the Liberal and SDP parties and was supported for the SDP by Roy Jenkins, Shirley Williams and Bill Rodgers.

Steel had often been criticised for a lack of interest in policy and it appeared he had agreed to the document – drawn up by politically naive SDP advisers – without reading it.