Formation The UDB was one of two post-war parties founded in Belgium appealing to Christian thought, the other being the
Christian Social Party (PSC-CVP), heir to the prewar
Catholic Party. The UDB's main founders were
Pierre Clerdent and and the party essentially originated in the French-speaking Christian
trade unions, being unable to gain major supporters from its Flemish counterpart. The UDB was essentially a "labourist" (
travailliste) party which would now be placed on the centre-left which advocated the
Catholic Church's disengagement from national politics (
déconfessionnalisation) and an agenda based on
progressivism (
progressisme). It had ambitions to be a nationwide party, but was mainly restricted to
Wallonia and the French-speakers in Brussels, making it short on influence in the capital's political circles. Its leaders came from the
Belgian resistance and the other parties hoped that the UDB and CVP would compete against and weaken each other by splitting the Christian Democrat vote. When the PSC-CVP refused to participate in the second government of
Achiel Van Acker (2 August 1945 - 9 January 1946), two UDB members of parliament joined it -
Marcel Gregoire for Justice and
Jacques Basyn for Defence.
Franz De Voghel (with UDB sympathies) was minister of finance.
Fall UDB hopes were high at the
general elections on 17 February 1946, but these were disappointed, with the party only gaining 51,095 votes (mainly in Brussels) and only managed to elect one person to the Chamber of Representatives (
Paul M. G. Lévy for the arrondissement of
Nivelles, though he resigned after only a few weeks and was replaced by
Werner Marchand). It was clear that the party had several leaders but no members. In 1946 it had 2,637 members - 380 in Flanders, 904 in Brabant (Brussels) and 1,353 in Wallonia. This marked its end. Some of its leaders went over to the CVP, including Pierre Clerdent (governor of
Luxembourg and
Liège and later a liberal senator),
Alfred Califice (frequently a minister for the CVP) and
Antoine Delfosse (for whom this meant a switch back to the CVP). Lévy,
Max Bastin and
Jacques Basyn became independents. ==Further reading==