Peace & Prosperity Party

The Peace & Prosperity Party (abbreviation: PPP) is a major political party in Vrachiapolis.

Initially founded as a more traditional "big tent" regional party in 1962, it soon became the largest political party in Vrachiapolis in the years after it achieved self-governance on 1 May 1971. After Vrachiapolis declared independence on 15 August 1974, co-founder Fahir Hamzaoglu and party secretary-general Sakis Karahalios began moving the party's ideology towards the centre-left, expelling the PPP's right-wing faction. Fellow co-founder Baha Çakmak went to on to lead the party for a decade, from 1979 to 2000.

The PPP have a dominant position in Vrachiapolian politics, with 80 out of 150 seats in Parliament. They have won parliamentary majorities in every election since 1974, and sizable majorities in all but two elections (2000, 2020).

Positioned on the centre-left of Vrachiapolian politics, the PPP is often regarded as a "big tent" party with several different ideological factions. The PPP's general position favours free-market economics, having turned the Vrachiapolian economy into one of the world's freest and most open, while socially supporting social liberalism, multiculturalism and egalitarianism.

Pre-independence (1962-1974)
On 3 November 1962, the PPP was officially registered as a political party by Fahir Hamzaoglu, Stylianos Katsanevas, Baha Çakmak and Costas Gavras. Originally, it was a single-issue party, campaigning for Vrachiapolian independence. However, after the that happened in Cyprus in 1963 to 1964, the PPP decided to campaign on equality too. As a result, the PPP attracted a wide variety of groups and people from across the political spectrum, and this has continued to this day.

During the period of Vrachiapolis being a city-state within Cyprus, both right and left-wing extremists in the PPP incited riots and violence in order to force the Cypriot government to give self-governance to Vrachiapolis. Greek and Turkish nationalists in Vrachiapolis were also assassinated by the "communist" faction because they represented "division and hate".

On 1 May 1971, Vrachiapolis achieved self-governance and the first general elections were held in December. The PPP, being the main organization leading the charge for self-governance, won a minority in the Vrachiapolian Legislative Council, with 20 out of 43 seats won. Their main rivals were the Civic Democratic Union, the Socialist Party, and the Labour Party.

Independence and split
Inevitably, after members of the right and left-wing factions of the PPP achieved their goal of self-governance and independence, internal conflict started to occur. Anti-communist and co-founder Costas Gavras was angered by what he seemed to be the "infiltration" of the party by "communists", as the left-wing faction had 13 out of 20 PPP seats elected in 1971, which increased to 57 out of 63 PPP seats elected in 1974. As a result, Gavras and former Mayor of Vrachiapolis Konstantinos Macrides pressed for the "moderatism" of the PPP, and called for the left-wing council members to be expelled from the council and the party.

Despite this, many party members in the PPP thought that Hamzaoglu or Karahalios, both liberals and moderates, were more suited to lead the PPP than Gavras, who was increasingly at odds with the other co-founders of the PPP, and Macrides, who was more radical and had connections to Hellenic Armed Forces personnel involved in the. Gavras and Macrides were finally expelled from the PPP in 1977. Their supporters followed their lead, leaving the PPP, and in 1979 they created the National Party.

Post-independence (1974 to present)
The PPP has held an overwhelming majority of seats in the Parliament of Vrachiapolis since 1974, and was at its strongest during Baha Çakmak's tenure as leader of the PPP (1979-2000). After the 1979 election, no real opposition was formed, and the PPP swept every seat in the 1980, 1985, 1990, and 1995 elections, albeit controversially following the killing of a journalist investigating electoral fraud in 1995.

Opposition returned in 2000 with the election of 2 MPs each from the National Party and the Socialist Party. In 2008, Prime Minister Paris Chatzimichalis announced the creation of "non-constituency MPs", which is to increase opposition party representation in the Parliament.

In the 2020 general election, it marked the first time the number of PPP members in Parliament were below 100, winning only 84 seats from 2015's 104. Despite this, the PPP still has a comfortable majority.