True Whig

The True Whig Party, also known as Liberian Whig Party, was Liberia's only legal political party for over 100 years, from 1878 to the coup d'etat of 1980.

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Initially, its ideology was heavily influenced by that of the United States Whig Party.

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It presided over a society where only settlers and their descendants were citizens able to vote, and so represented them, often working in tandem with the Masonic Order. The party endorsed systems of forced labour. In 1930 they sold human labour to Portuguese colonialists on Fernando Po (now Bioko), leading to a five-year U.S. and British boycott of Liberia. Despite this dispute, the West saw them as a stabilising, unthreatening force and so invested heavily in the nation under William Tubman's leadership (1944–1971).

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The party lost power after Tubman's successor, William Tolbert, was killed in an April 1980 coup by forces opposed to his clampdown on the political opposition and tolerance of corruption. It was then the opposition's turn to clamp down on the True Whig Party. The vast majority of its members and supporters left the party, but it struggled on as a minor party and was still active as of 2002.

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Liberia: :This article is about the country in Africa; for the town in Costa Rica, see Liberia, Costa Rica...

1878: 1878 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar)....

Coup d'etat: A coup d'?tat (pronounced /ku de 'ta/), or simply a coup, is the sudden overthrow of a government, usually done by a small group that just replaces the top power figures. It is different from a revolution, which is staged by a larger group and radically changes the political system. The term is Fren...

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