National Progressive Front الجبهة الوطنية التقدمية | |
|---|---|
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| Secretary-General | Naim Haddad |
| Founder | Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr |
| Founded | 16 July 1973 |
| Dissolved | 1 May 2003 |
| Headquarters | Baghdad, Iraq |
| Ideology | Saddamism Internal factions:
|
| Political position | Big tent |
| National Assembly (2000) | 250 / 250 |
The National Progressive Front (Arabic: الجبهة الوطنية التقدمية, al-Jabha al-Wataniyyah at-Taqaddumiyyah, NPF, sometimes known as the Progressive Patriotic and National Front) was an Iraqi popular front announced on 16 July 1973 and constituted in 1974, ostensibly formed within the framework of a "joint action programme" to establish a coalition between the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, the Iraqi Communist Party, the Kurdistan Revolutionary Party, a pro-government section of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, and miscellaneous independents. The Iraqi Communist Party were removed from the NPF in 1979 while the Kurdish Democratic Party suffered restrictions when Saddam Hussein came to power after 1979. The creation of the Front ensured the leading role of the Ba'athists in state and society whilst allowing limited autonomy for other participating parties loyal to the government. Saddam spoke of it once as "one of the essential forms to voice our will and to deepen democracy and political participation of the people and the national forces in building the new experiment in all fields."[1] In effect the Front was controlled and maintained solely by the Ba'ath, with all other legal political forces acting in subservience to it.[2]