Testimonial party

Testimonial party ( _nl. beginselpartij) is a party that focuses on its principles, instead of adapting them to local or temporal issues in the pursuit of coalition participation. It is a specifically Dutch phenomenon, because of the Dutch system of proportional representation, in which any party which has over 0.66% of the vote can enter parliament. Examples of parties that have referred to themselves as "testimonial" include the orthodox Protestant SGP and the animal welfare party Party for the Animals. In contrast the term program party is used, for parties oriented at coalition participation.

In New Zealand, Christian Heritage New Zealand may have been an exported version of a 'testimonial party' to a foreign national context, whose Mixed Member Proportional electoral system discouraged the success of such small fundamentalist-based political parties.