Christian Solidarity Party

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Comhar Críostaí - Christian Solidarity Party
Leader	Cathal Loftus
Founded	1997
Headquarters	14 North Frederick Street, Dublin 1 353-(0)1-878 3529 comharcriostai@eircom.net
Political Ideology	Christian social principles
International Affiliation	none
European Affiliation	none
European Parliament Group	n/a
Colours	Lemon Yellow
Website	None
See also: Politics of the Republic of Ireland Political parties in the Republic of Ireland Elections in Ireland

The Christian Solidarity Party (Irish: An Comhar Críostaí) is a political party in the Republic of Ireland without parliamentary representation. It was founded by Gerard Casey and first took part in the 1997 general election.

It is robustly orthodox to Roman Catholic teachings and policies, and its main policies are based upon traditional, and unequivocal, pro-life natalism. The party describes itself as follows: "The Christian Solidarity Party is dedicated to the causes of Life, the Family and the Community. The CSP promotes policies that safeguard the value of human life from conception to natural death, that support the position of the family as the fundamental unit group of society, and that allow human communities to flourish in a manner consistent with human dignity."

[edit] CSP People 2005

The leader is party president Cathal Loftus. Michael O'Brien is the general secretary.

In the European Parliament election, 2004, the CSP announced it had no plans to run, but later announced pro-lifer Barry Despard as a candidate. He said he was standing because other parties, wittingly or unwittingly, supported "killing people before they are born". The party asked for "moral voters" to vote no.1 Despard and transfer to pro-life candidates. He came ninth of twelve candidates in the Dublin constituency with 5,352 first-preference votes, or 1.3% of the valid poll.

In the 2002 general election, the CSP ran 19 candidates, between the ages of 22 and 82. Some ran in more than one constituency. They spent €12,284.71 on the campaign.

[edit] External links

• Christian Solidarity Party — from the Irish Times guide to the 2002 election

Political Parties in the Republic of Ireland
Represented in Dáil Éireann:	Fianna Fáil (80) | Fine Gael (32) | Labour Party (22) | Progressive Democrats (8) | Green Party (6) | Sinn Féin (5) | Socialist Party (1)
Represented in Seanad Éireann:	Fianna Fáil (29) | Fine Gael (15) | Labour Party (5) | Progressive Democrats (5)
Represented in the European Parliament:	Fine Gael (5) | Fianna Fáil (4) | Labour Party (1) | Sinn Féin (2)
	note:Sinn Féin's second European seat is held in Northern ireland
Minor parties:	Workers Party | Socialist Workers Party | Communist Party of Ireland | Christian Solidarity Party | Republican Sinn Féin