United Ecumenical Alliance

The United Ecumenical Alliance (: Verenigde Oecumenische Alliantie, VOA) is a political party in Lindenholt. It is currently the third largest party in the States General and is in opposition to the current government.

The VOA was founded after a merger of Lindenholt's two major Christian democratic parties, the Reformed State Party (GSP) and the Catholic Union (KU). While both parties often supported each other in governing coalitions and were ideologically almost identical, their electorate was split along religious lines.

The Steegmans era (1964-1980) saw both the KU and GSP completely side lined from governing coalitions for sixteen years where the centrist Centre Party (MP) and social liberal Union of Democrats (UVD) formed four consecutive governing coalitions under the leadership of the social democratic Labourers Party (AP). During this time there had been several plans for the parties to merge in order to achieve an electoral victory. In 1978 the party congresses voted on the issue of uniting the parties for the 1980 general elections, a vote that was only narrowly passed by both parties' members. The parties officially merged their leadership on January 1 1979, whereas it was agreed that groups within elected bodies (such as district, municipal or provincial councils or parliament) would campaign for the next election as a single VOA list and would function as a single fraction after the subsequent election. For the States General this merger date was 24 June 1980. The last Lindian GSP and KU fractions merged on 21 June 1983 in several municipal councils, whereas the GSP and KU members in the Vestean Parliament continued until the 1984 Vestean Parliament election.

In contemporary politics the party is considered to be a centrist conservative party with Christian influences. While VOA acknowledges and embraces these Christian roots, it has tried since its creation to appeal to non-religious conservative voters. This effort has largely succeeded, as a significant portion of the party considers themselves social conservatives rather than Christian democrats. Fiscally the party's ideology ranges from centre-left to centre-right. Unlike parties such as the LVP or V'04 it advocates against deregulation of the economy and does not prioritise a reduction in taxes, but VOA also opposes extensive social programmes proposed by left wing parties such as AP and GP. The party is neutral on the issue of immigration, believing that compassion should play a large role in the process but that the government should pressure foreigners to integrate; it is positive about Lindenholt's VU membership and argues that the Earth was a gift from God and should thus be protected through environmental policies and the usage of sustainable energy.