1976 Liberal Party (UK) leadership election the only time it was ever used to elect a Liberal leader. The election was won by David Steel, who served as leader of the Liberal Party until merger with the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in 1988, forming the Liberal Democrats. David Steel later served as interim leader of the Liberal Democrats (jointly with Bob Maclennan of the SDP) for the duration of the 1988 leadership election which eventually elected Paddy Ashdown as the new party's first permanent leader. 1976 Liberal Party (UK) leadership election The 1976 Liberal Party (UK) leadership election was called following the resignation of Jeremy Thorpe
Liberal Party of Australia in 1971; and Malcolm Fraser's Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1976. A West Australian Liberal, Ken Wyatt, became the first Indigenous Australian elected to the House of Representatives in 2010. The Liberal Party is a member of the International Democrat Union. The Liberal Party and its predecessor parties have been the first to directly elect female representatives to the federal and every state and territory parliament nationwide. The first female member of the Australian House of Representatives and member of cabinet, Dame Enid Lyons, was elected in 1943 as a Liberal representing the division of Darwin in Tasmania. The first female