A comeback of sorts was seen during the 1960s and 1970s, but it was not until 1981, when the Liberals allied with the newly formed SDP to form the SDP-Liberal Alliance, that the party enjoyed significant electoral success.

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.

The Liberals were reduced to a mere forty seats in Parliament, only seven of which had been won against candidates from both parties and none of these formed a coherent area of Liberal survival.

The new party and the Liberals quickly formed an alliance, which for a while polled as high as 50 % in the opinion polls and appeared capable of winning the next general election.

Apart from this, when no party has had a majority, minority governments normally have been formed with one or more opposition parties agreeing to vote for the legislation governments need to function, as the Labour government of James Callaghan formed a coalition with the Liberals in 1977 when it lost its narrow majority gained at the October 1974 election.

It formed its first government under parliamentarism in 1889, and continued to alternate in power with the Liberals until the 1930s, when Labour became the dominant political party.

Since 20 July 2004, ELDR is politically represented in the European Parliament by the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe ( ALDE ) parliamentary group, formed in conjunction with the European Democratic Party.

He formed a new coalition government dominated by Liberals and appointed David Lloyd George as Minister of Munitions.

Guy Verhofstadt formed a government of Liberals, Socialists and Greens.

Menzies soon formed the Young Liberals to replace them.

In April 1982 Cain defeated the Liberals and formed the first Labor government in Victoria for 27 years since the one led by his father.

The Liberals formed a minority government dependent on the support of the Irish Nationalists.

The winning party, the liberales ( Liberals ) formed a provisional government under General Juan Álvarez, inaugurating the period known as La Reforma.

The anti-Home Rule Liberals formed a ' Committee for the Preservation of the Union ' in early 1886 and were soon joined by a smaller radical faction led by Joseph Chamberlain and John Bright.

When the dissident Liberals eventually formed the Liberal Unionist Council, which was to become the Liberal Unionist party, Chamberlain organised the separate National Radical Union in Birmingham.

As secretary of the municipal commission, which sat at the hôtel-de-ville and formed itself into a provisional government, he was charged to convey to the chamber of deputies a protest embodying the terms which the advanced Liberals wished to impose on the king to be elected.

The Liberals formed a government under Harlan Carey Brewster.

Wilson and Tyabji then left the Liberals and formed their own party, the Progressive Democratic Alliance.

He remained Prime Minister until Gladstone's Liberals formed a government with the support of the Irish Nationalist Party, despite the Unionists gaining the largest number of votes and seats in the 1892 general election.

The crisis was resolved when Borden formed a Union government composed of Conservatives and pro-conscription Liberals.

In 1893, Hardie and others formed the Independent Labour Party, an action that worried the Liberals, who were afraid that the ILP might, at some point in the future, win the working-class votes that they traditionally received.

Luís's domestic reign was a tedious and ineffective series of transitional governments called Rotativism formed at various times by the Progressistas ( Liberals ) and the Regeneradores ( Conservatives – the party generally favoured by King Luís, who secured their long term in office after 1881 ).

Liberals strongly supported the new direction, and formed the New Deal Coalition of union members, big city machines, the white South, and ethnic minorities to support it.

Circumventing the die-hard Liberals in the National Assembly who opposed him, Estigarribia assumed " temporary " dictatorial powers in February 1940, but promised the dictatorship would end as soon as a workable constitution was written.

He had undoubtedly played a considerable role in the conspiracy of 1821, being the most influential and richest of the Milanese Liberals ; when first arrested his conduct may have been open to criticism, but he more than expiated any temporary weakness due to ill-health and to the barbarous methods of examination by his heroic attitude during his long imprisonment, and his persistent refusal to accept offers of pardon accompanied by dishonouring conditions.

During World War I, the Liberals governed Britain through a coalition with the Conservatives, which ended in 1922.

The Liberals languished in opposition for a decade, while the coalition of Salisbury and Chamberlain held power.

In the 1918 general election Lloyd George, " the Man Who Won the War ", led his coalition into another khaki election, and won a sweeping victory over the Asquithian Liberals and the newly emerging Labour Party.

The results produced a ČSSD coalition government with Christian Democrats ( KDU-ČSL ) and Liberals ( US-DEU ), while Civic Democrats ( ODS ) and Communists ( KSČM ) took place in opposition.

During the First World War Prime Minister Robert Borden attempted to form a coalition with the opposition Liberals to broaden support for controversial conscription legislation.

In the 2005 election it won 18 out of 179 seats in the Folketing and became a junior partner in coalition with the Liberals.

A Liberal-Conservative coalition during World War I, coupled with the ascent of the Labour Party, hastened the collapse of the Liberals in the 1920s.

During the following year, three different men briefly held executive power before Galo Plaza Lasso, running under a coalition of independent Liberals and socialists, narrowly defeated his Conservative opponent in presidential elections.

It continued therefore to engage in the Grand Coalition ( a coalition with the Socialist Group, or occasionally the Liberals ) to generate the majorities required by the cooperation procedure under the Single European Act.

The election resulted in a hung parliament with the Tories having the most votes but Labour having slightly more seats, and failed attempts by Heath to form a coalition with the Liberals led to the resignation of his government and the return of Harold Wilson as prime minister of a minority Labour government, which gained a three-seat majority at a second election later in the year.

After the election, the Nationals negotiated an agreement to form a government with the Liberals and an independent MP, though not described as a " traditional coalition " due to the reduced cabinet collective responsibility of National cabinet members.

The Nationals are in a coalition with the Liberals at a State level in Victoria.

The Liberals have also gained support as the differences between the coalition partners on a federal level have become invisible.

Led by Colonel Rafael Franco, the revolutionaries were an unlikely coalition of Febreristas, Liberals, and communists, united only in their desire to overthrow Moríñigo.

An election was called for 13 December, which the Liberal Party won in its own right ( although the Liberals governed in a coalition with the Country Party ).

The polarization did take place and while the Liberals remained active under Lloyd George, they won few seats and were a minor factor until they joined a coalition with the Conservatives in 2010.

On that occasion the party won 48. 5 % of the vote, but, despite its absolute majority in the Italian Parliament, De Gasperi continued to govern at the head of a centrist coalition that included the Italian Workers ' Socialist Party ( PSLI-a 1947 break-away from the PSI ), the Liberals and the Republicans.

This was a coalition government, including Ratz, the Independent Liberals, Progress and Development and the Arab List for Bedouins and Villagers.

He was the last Liberal to serve as Prime Minister, his coalition premiership being supported more by Conservatives than by his own Liberals, and the subsequent split was a key factor in the decline of the Liberal Party as a serious political force thereafter.

The more traditional wing of the Unionist Party had no intention of introducing reforms, which led to three years of frustrated fighting within the coalition both between the National Liberals and the Unionists and between factions within the Conservatives themselves.

Following a failed attempt to establish a coalition with the Liberals, Heath conceded power to a minority Labour government under Harold Wilson, which won a small majority in a second election in October that year.

When Labour won more seats ( though fewer votes ) than the Conservative Party in February 1974 and Heath was unable to persuade the Liberals to form a coalition, Wilson returned to 10 Downing Street on 4 March 1974 as Prime Minister of a minority Labour Government.

It was the second time the Country Party had effectively vetoed its senior partner's choice for the leadership ; in 1923 Earle Page had demanded that the Nationalist Party, one of the forerunners of the Liberals, remove Billy Hughes as leader before he would even consider coalition talks.