Civic Alliance (Vistaraland)

Civic Alliance Burgerlijke Alliantie
Abbreviation	BA
Leader	Heidi Mulder
Deputy Leader	Wil-Jan Hakket
Lords Leader	Lukas Visser
Founded	4 December 2020 (2020-12-04)
Preceded by	Functionalist faction of the Liberal-Progressive Party
Headquarters	Molebaai, Molensland
Ideology	Liberalism Vistari unionism Constitutional monarchism
Political position	Centre
Zwartbaarian affiliation	Burgerlijke Unie - Civica
Colours	Light blue
Member parties	Civic Liberal Party Civic Unionist Party
Chamber of Representatives	169 / 1,020
Chamber of Lord-Advisors	19 / 114
Political parties

The Civic Alliance (Vistarian: Burgerlijke Alliantie) is a liberal parliamentary group and political alliance in Vistaraland. As of the Vistari federal election of 2020, the group is the second largest in the Imperial Parliamentary Council, behind only the conservative Joint List. Currently, the alliance makes up part of the Vistari Government under Allard Baas, agreeing to form a coalition under the Baas-led Joint List in January 2021. While officially an alliance of two parties, the Civic Liberal Party and the Civic Unionist Party, Civic Alliance is often observed to work to a degree comparable to a single unified party. In deciding on unified policy, the alliance hosts the biannual Convention on Vistari Liberalism - where each attending member from both parties is permitted to vote on adjustments to the alliance's policy platform. As the leader of the larger Civic Liberal Party, Civic Alliance is headed by Heidi Mulder, with Wil-Jan Hakket of the Civic Unionist Party serving as Deputy. While it is mandated that the two leadership positions are filled by members of different parties, the Alliance's founding document makes no preference on who is elected Leader - allowing for the possibility of a Civic Unionist to head the alliance if they have enough popularity amongst its members.

While sharing an approach of granting member parties the ability to run separate candidates in multi-member districts with the Joint List, the more unified structure of the Civic Alliance can be accredited to its formation at the same time as its constituent parties, with the then-named Civic Liberals and Liberal Unionists both arising from the December 2020 split in the Liberal-Progressive Party which led to the party's formal dissolution and the transition of its rump faction into Progress and Liberty. While the Civic Liberals - made up of the former Left-functionalist group of the Liberal-Progressives - and the Liberal Unionists - comprising members of the Right-functionalists - had some disagreements on the extent in which conservative ideology could be incorporated into Vistari Liberalism, both splinter parties agreed on support and collaboration with the Baas Interim Government who had been tasked to present and enact the Second Vistari Constitution. As such, with both acting against the wishes of their former party, Heidi Mulder and Gerrit Verhulst signed an agreement of association between the two fledgling parties, which would go on to contest the 2020 election as the Civic Alliance.

In terms of policy, the alliance's main goal is to seek a unified liberal voice, compromising between a moderate brand of social liberalism, as well as the traditional economically-liberal political doctrine at the forefront of modern Vistari politics - represented heavily by the brand of conservative liberalism championed by the Civic Unionist Party. As such, the alliance places itself ideologically in between the fiscally right-wing policies propagated by previous governments led by Joint List parties and the more progressive parties championing economic reform seen in the Formal Opposition. This is demonstrated through a mixed policy on government intervention, promoting moves by the government to intervene when and where it is deemed strictly necessary to do so to better the lives of the population. A key example of this was the Civic Alliance's support for Reiner Wever - the Civic Liberal Lord Minister of Vorpest - and his plan to introduce state provided healthcare in the wake of concerns brought about by the 2021 Aduraszna quake and tsunami.

In viewing the alliance in political analysis, many have suggested that it should, or inevitably will, form into a singular party to better compete on equal grounds with the leading Imperial Conservative Party. However, despite the strategic benefits of such an agreement, concerns have been raised by prominent members of the Civic Alliance, including founding leaders Lukas Visser and Heidi Mulder, that such a step may appear as the Civic Liberal Party absorbing the smaller, more right-leaning Civic Unionists, which could leader to a number of Civic Unionists defecting to the Imperial Conservatives and thereby weaken the Alliance as a whole in comparison to the Joint List. As such, the prospect of a merger has become increasingly controversial amongst Civic Alliance members and voters, with mentioning of a merger deemed "unfit for productive debate" by Mulder at the 2022 Convention on Vistari Liberalism.