Emergence as major party Although the party traces its history back to the foundation of the
Liberal League in 1904, it was founded in its current form on 24 April 1955. It was the successor to the
Democratic Group, which had grown out of the major group of war-time liberal resistance fighters, the
Patriotic and Democratic Group. The DP spent the majority of the 1950s and 1960s, under the leadership of
Lucien Dury and then
Gaston Thorn, establishing itself as the third major party, ahead of the
Communist Party. At the time of its foundation, the party had six seats in the Chamber of Deputies. At
the following election in 1959, the DP won 11 seats, allowing it to serve as a minor role in a
grand coalition with the
Christian Social People's Party (CSV) and
Luxembourg Socialist Workers' Party (LSAP). However,
in 1964, the party went back to six seats. In 1968, the DP absorbed the anti-establishment
Popular Independent Movement. In
that year's election, the party benefited from a tide of moderates shifting from an increasingly radical LSAP, Surprisingly, in the negotiations, the DP got the upper hand, securing the most ministerial positions and departments, as well as the premiership itself under
Gaston Thorn. The formation of Thorn's government, however, coincided with the beginning of an economic crisis, and the government was occupied mostly with the restructuring of the
steel industry whilst attempting to avoid mass
unemployment. including abolishing
capital punishment (1974), allowing
no-fault divorce (1975) and broadening at-fault divorce (1978), and legalising
abortion (1978). In 1977, the government abandoned plans to build a
nuclear power plant at
Remerschen, When PM, in 1975, Thorn sat as
President of the United Nations General Assembly.
Since 1979 In 1979, Thorn went head-to-head with Werner, with the LSAP serving a supporting role to the DP. Both the CSV ended victorious, gaining six seats, and the LSAP's loss of three seats made it impossible for the DP to renew the coalition with them. As a result, Werner formed a coalition with the DP, with Thorn as
Deputy Prime Minister. In the first
European election in 1979, the DP won 2 seats: an achievement that it hasn't matched since. In 1980, Thorn was named the new
President of the European Commission, and was replaced by
Colette Flesch. The
1984 general election saw the DP's first electoral setback in twenty years. and on 4 December 2013 the
Bettel-Schneider government was sworn in, with DP leader
Xavier Bettel serving as Prime Minister. The
2018 general election saw the DP lose a seat, but the three-party coalition was able to maintain its majority under the
Bettel II Government. In
2023, though the DP gained the most votes in its history and had its best result since 1999 with 14 seats, the electoral defeat of the Greens, who went from 9 to 4 seats, meant the government lost its majority. The party became a junior coalition partner to the CSV, with Bettel becoming Deputy Prime Minister in the
Frieden-Bettel Government. ==Ideology==