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In an election in which parties scrambled for the centre ground, perhaps the most ideologically committed candidates were those standing for the Natural Law Party. Driven to the polls by a desire to share their deeply held belief in the Maharishi's Vedic science and the transformative power of Transcendental Meditation (TM) (and other philosophies ancient and modern), the party contested 195 seats. There was never any doubt that it would qualify for a Party Election Broadcast (PEB). Unfortunately, the broadcast was too full of jargon to be readily comprehensible to the uninitiated. Its budget was tiny (reputedly around 1000) and it showed. It is difficult to see the Natural Law PEB as anything other than a example of how not to present one's cause to the nation.
The Natural Law Party was formed in Great Britain on 15 March 1992. The original idea was that the best way to share the benefits of TM and an awareness of Natural Law was to express it in terms that fitted the interests of the wider population. In a world focused on politics, it seemed logical to use a political party as a vehicle. Given the deadlock of two-party systems in both Britain and the United States, 1992 seemed an ideal moment to act. The party contested 310 seats in the British general election that year, receiving a meagre 0.4% of the vote where it stood. Undeterred, with the advice of the party leader-physicist Geoffrey Clements-sister parties followed some 40 countries world-wide. In the United States, a Natural Law candidate (also a physicist) Dr John Hagelin contested the presidential elections of both 1992 and 1996. Since 1992 the Natural Law Party has fought elections at all levels of government in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Serbia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Though typically support has been slight, by 1997 the party had at least won four regional seats. Gains in Britain were limited. In the 1994 European election the voter share in the UK doubled to 0.8% as against the general election of 1992. In May 1995 the party won its first seats in the UK: seven parish councillors. It was a start [1].