Beel was not the party's leader, a post which was taken by Carl Romme, who led the KVP from the House of Representatives between 1946 and 1961.

The PvdA and the KVP were joined by combinations of the Protestant-Christian Anti-Revolutionary Party (ARP) and Christian Historical Union (CHU) and the liberal People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) to form oversized cabinets, which often held a comfortable two-thirds majority in the House of Representatives.

The cabinets were oriented at rebuilding Dutch society and economy after the ravages of World War II and grant independence to Indonesia.

This led to unrest among young and left-wing KVP supporters, including Ruud Lubbers, Jo Cals, Erik Jurgens and Jacques Aarden, who called themselves Christian Radicals.

After the election, this promise was upheld and the KVP formed a cabinet with its old partners, led by Piet de Jong.

The KVP again joined the ARP, CHU and VVD to form a new centre-right cabinet with right-wing dissenters of the PvdA, united in Democratic Socialists '70 (DS'70).

The cabinet lost its majority and the KVP saw no alternative than to cooperate with the PvdA and its allies PPR and Democrats 66 (D'66).

An extra-parliamentary cabinet was formed by PvdA, PPR and D66 joined by prominent progressives from KVP and ARP.

The KVP did not officially support this cabinet, which was led by social democrat Joop den Uyl.

Indeed, the CDA's first two prime ministers, van Agt and Ruud Lubbers, came from the KVP side of the merger.

Nowadays many CDA members, like Maxime Verhagen and Maria van der Hoeven have a background in the KVP's political Catholicism.

As such, it was a proponent of a mixed economy: A strong welfare state should be combined with a free market, with a corporatist organisation.

Families were to be helped by fiscal policies, such as the kinderbijslag, support by the government, by the newly set up Ministry of Culture, Recreation and Welfare, and the possibility to buy their own home.

The party sought the middle ground in the issue of decolonisation: Indonesia and Suriname should be independent countries within a Dutch Commonwealth.

In regions like Twente, West Friesland and Zeelandic Flanders it held similar positions in municipalities, but cooperated with other parties on the provincial level.

Its strength was in the Catholic south of the Netherlands: North Brabant and Limburg, where it often obtained more than 90% of vote.

The strong ties resulted in several cabinets in the period from 1946 to 1977 and the formation of the Christian Democratic Appeal, in which the three parties united in 1974.

Beginning in 1952 however, "the focus of power within the KVP shifted to the right, resulting in frequent conflicts within the cabinet, especially in the area of economic and social policy.