Western Wing

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The so-called Western Wing of the Kryfona Social Populist Party was the nickname given to the group of party officials and party members who gradually left the party to form the Social Populists between July of 1962 and August of 1963. Officially known by the name of the Social Populist Western Movement, the Western Wing represented the greatest party defection in the history of any Kryfona party, before or since, and its split from the KSPP essentially crippled the KSPP as a party in a time when it was on the cusp of ascending to federal party status.

As indicated by their name, the Western Wing almost exclusively consisted of KSPP members from the Western Kryfona Kingdom, which at the time was a social populist stronghold and yet exerted virtually no influence over the direction of the party. The group that called itself the Social Populist Western Movement was founded in early 1961 in an effort to combat this; yet, finding that many of the Eastern Kryfona Kingdom-based party members refused to budge on the matter, gradually distanced themselves from the party before organizing a split that would take place at some point in the future. The split officially began on 17 July, 1962, when most of the SPWM members resigned from their posts, but it would not be until August of the next year that the split was finalized. In the course of the year between its beginning and end, the KSPP lost nearly 180,000 of its 400,000 members, and lost its control over virtually the entire Western Kingdom. In part because of the split, the party was denied from becoming a federal party just a few weeks after the split concluded.

The split was a vitriolic affair, with accusations of treason and corruption being lobbed by both sides. The split was largely regional, with almost all of the Eastern members of the KSPP opting to stay with the party, and likewise nearly all of the Western members jumping ship to the newly-founded Social Populists. Neither the Western Wing delegates nor the KSPP attempted to actually reconcile their differences on the matter at any point during the affair. Subsequently, for the next three decades, both the Social Populists and the KSPP functioned as separate entities and refused to collaborate on any matter. This had negative consequences for both parties, and by 1993 both the KSPP and the Social Populists had lost a significant number of their historical seats, as well as their historical influence in many provinces. As such, the two parties ultimately reconciled in 1994 and 1995 after talks between them were restored, and today, the parties stand under the unified banner of the "Social Populist Front." Nonetheless, the split between them has not fully healed even now; the Old World Social Populist Union, which is KSPP-aligned, has historically refused to allow the Social Populists in to the Union because of their ties to the Western Wing delegates.

See also