National Progressive Front (Iraq)

National Progressive Front الجبهة الوطنية التقدمية
Secretary-General	Naim Haddad [ar]
Founder	Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr
Founded	16 July 1973; 50 years ago (16 July 1973)
Dissolved	1 May 2003; 21 years ago (1 May 2003)
Headquarters	Baghdad, Iraq
Ideology	Saddamism Internal factions: Neo-Ba'athism Kurdish nationalism Communism (until 1979)
Political position	Big tent
National Assembly (2000)	250 / 250
Politics of Iraq Political parties Elections

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]