The group endorsed seven reform-minded candidates in the 1988 municipal election of which five were elected, helping to create the first majority of reform candidates in Toronto history,.

The club's leader, Jerry Goldfeder, said it had settled on Mr. Brown, the former California governor, because he was "clearly the most independent, reform-minded candidate in the current field."

They spoke yesterday about a "national search" for a reform-minded candidate who would focus on basics and be a consensus builder.

As Hutton explained it, the conservative cardinal Giuseppe Siri was probably passed over for pope in 1958 in favor of a more reform-minded candidate.

He was a young, idealistic person who really worked very hard for reform-minded candidates.

In January, however, Mr. Golisano announced that he would instead focus on supporting reform-minded candidates.

In Brooklyn, the party fielded a slate of reform-minded judicial candidates as a statement against the corruption scandals involving local judges (none won, however).

Omahans, fed up with Dennison's corrupt style, voted in Edward Parsons Smith, a reform-minded candidate committed to "cleaning up Omaha", as mayor in 1918.

More than 2 500 reform-minded candidates have now been excluded from the elections, including around 80 sitting MPs.

The National Progressive Republican League was created in 1911 to encourage the nomination of a reform-minded candidate for the upcoming presidential election.