Political parties had not yet emerged, and between the 1860s and the 1880s New South Wales was governed mainly by loose-knit factions whose presence resulted in frequent changes of ministry.
The LDP remains a loose assembly of factions dedicated to a wide range of special interests.
They are the senior officers of the loose alliance of factions that now comprises the only opposition to the Taliban - the extremist regime that controls around 80percentnt of Afghanistan.
The group, which fights under the banner of a loose alliance of factions known as the "Free Syrian Army", confirmed the death of its chief of staff, Basil Zamo, formerly a captain in the Syrian military.
On March 25, thousands joined a sit-in organized by a loose coalition of youth factions, civil society organizations, leftists, Islamists and nationalists demanding an end to corruption and autocracy, changes in election laws and constitutional reform.
The challenge for the voters will be to sort through the labyrinth of tickets, loose alliances among political factions, and the great many candidates who will be totally unknown to them.President Muhammad Khatami's ticket, called the Islamic Iran Participation Front, draws its candidates from 18 different groups.
Indeed, some commanders of the group, a loose coalition of paramilitary factions calling itself the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, had discussed in April the assassination of Mr. Uribe as a way of gaining leverage in the negotiations, the president said in an address.
This week, a moderate faction in a loose alliance of Kashmiri separatists agreed to hold the first direct talks with India, which controls roughly two-thirds of the territory that has been in dispute since 1947.
For president Jacob Zuma and his allies, she represents a dangerous loose cannon, while for the factions seeking to oust Zuma, she is a totemic rallying figure.
More probable is a gradual escalation of the current "dirty war" between neighborhood militias that have loose ties to national political factions and are fighting almost as much within sectarian lines as across them.
